Kinderling 51

 In case you are interested in starting this story at the beginning, Kinderling 1 can be found here:

The Tricycle of Thought: Kinderling 1

Please don't judge the story or the writing too harshly, this story is written with little to no editing.  It is just meant to get me writing regularly for practice.  

Now back to our story, already in progress..

For the next few days we sat in the cave watching the Elf.  We took turns sneaking out looking for food and medicine ingredients.  The lake was full of fish and I was easily able to snatch a few for us to eat. 

Mama made a second batch of the vile tar we were spreading on the Elf when we started running low.

The first few days, there was little to no improvement.  Mama kept measuring the diamond shape on the Elf's stomach to see if it got smaller.  It didn't.  According to Mama, that it wasn't getting bigger was a good sign. 

On the third or forth day, it's hard to keep track of time while in a cave, doing nothing but tending to a never-changing, yet sleeping, Elf.

"The ends of my fingers are tingling."  The Elf rasped out.

Mama pushed her back down on the bed and wiped the goop out of the way.  This time, the diamond was bigger than before.

"Looks like you are out of the woods."  Mama told her, "The tingling is from the feeling coming back after such a long time."

"How much will come back?"  The Elf asked.  She seemed so hopeless and small, it shocked me.  This  was the same Elf  that practically sneered in the face of certain death when we found her in the Gorf dungeon cell.  

"Not much unless we can get you back to your people."  Mama said.  You might think it cold, but Mama always believed in giving it to people straight.  "The Star Sailor has a way of regenerating this kind of damage if we can get  you to him in time.  Only problem is, we can't travel that fast while carrying you."

Mama was right, sure we could go fast when it was just Mama an I.  We could probably go fast enough if the Elf weren't injured and sick.  That was the problem.  I can only fly so fast while also trying to keep from further damaging a wounded Elf.

"It is hopeless then, I would rather die than live like this."  The Elf was losing hope.

"Why?  Wouldn't it be better to live?"  I said, hoping to snap her out of it.  It didn't work.

"Elves live for a very long time small one.  Why would I want to sentence myself to being an object of pity for a thousand years or more?"

"Pish,"  Mama scoffed.  "Keep your self-pity to yourself.  Does The Star Sailor still mope around sorrow point and commune with the quarter-moon?"

I blinked.  Not even sure what Mama had just said.  The words had a much larger effect on the Elf though.  

"You do not speak of the Sailor that way!" She snapped, then more confused.  "How do you even know of such things?  Elven sorrow is not for the amusement of... of... outsiders."

"Can it Elfie, nobody's dying on my watch. We'll just have to figure out a way."  Mama said.

"Anyone else would be dead for talking to me that way."  The Elf said, but it was said with resignation, as if the Elf didn't believe Mama, rather that the danger I expected.  Elves have a reputation for murdering people who disrespect them.  Well, murder from our point of view, if not theirs.

Mama started going through our packs looking for some way to do the seemingly impossible.  "Tandy, can you think of some way we can make a harness?  Maybe with our tree-camping gear?"

I really couldn't.  Our tree camping hammocks were light weight material.  They were fine for Kinderlings, but even as light-bodied as Elves are, they weighed a lot more than we did.

"Even if you did find a way, the youngling would be in peril if you took her to Sorrow's Point."  The Elf unhelpfully pointed out.  I was starting to get real tired of her negative attitude.

"Oh and I suppose it's fine to put Mama's life in peril, but mine would be too much?"  I spat at her.

The Elf actually laughed.  "The Mystic can go where she will.  No Elf would dare raise a hand to her.  The King of All himself has named her friend."

"Can't say as I recall meeting any Elven Kings."  Mama said distractedly as she kept sifting through our belongings hoping inspiration would strike.

"Then you should have paying more attention to the future, Mystic."  The Elf said, "He is the very one who named you so."

"That was Junior who gave me that dumb name...  Wait... Are you telling me that Junior became King?"  Mama said surprised.  

The Elf almost choked.  "You talk of the King of All with so much disrespect?"  That one had some anger in it.

"He was just Junior when I met him."  Mama said, I could tell she was getting a bit tired of the attitude. "Of the four I ran into, Junior was obviously the lowest.  How am I supposed to know he somehow became King?   The others ordered him around and made him do all the scut work.  I felt sorry for the lad.  They were so worried about the one with the arrow, they didn't even notice that he had a stab wound until I pointed it out."

"It would have killed him too.  The wound was much worse than he let on.  The knife that made that wound was an assassin's blade that was cursed against our people."  The Elf added.  "The tiny shard you pulled out of his wound while you were tending it would have worked it's way into his heart.  Thankfully you recognized the danger in time.  You saved both of them."

"I didn't recognize any particular danger other than that he had an open stab wound that he wasn't able to get to stop bleeding.  I simply saw something sticking in the wound while I was cleaning it and yanked it out with some tweezers before I stitched him up.  For the other one, I just pulled the arrow out and managed to slow the iron poisoning long enough for us to get her back to the Star Sailor.  The other's said he could help.  It wasn't till later that I learned the effect that cold iron has on your people.  I just treated it like any other poison."  Mama said,  "I wish the Star Sailor would have shared his secret.  It would have been handy about now."

"The King of All kept that little piece you pulled from his wound and showed it to his Father who recognized it.  In a way, that tiny piece of cursed iron was what made him King of All."  

At Mama's confused look, the Elf continued.

"The Elven trackers you ran into in the forest weren't part of the Human's war, although you were probably lead to believe that they were.  They were hunting a fugitive assassin from the Forever War."

"What's the Forever war?"  I asked.

"It's a war between different groups of Elves."  Mama answered, "They don't like talking about it, but not all of the Elves are as united as they let on.  There are a couple different factions actually.  Usually it's quiet, but every once in a while it goes hot for a year or two."

The Elf seemed surprised that Mama knew about the forever war.

"That they used one of the cursed daggers on a member of the royal line was enough to ignite a particularly violent point in the war.  The High King declared war, and sent out his army, only the enemy had other ideas.  Instead of meeting an army, they met only assassins that sneaked into camp and assonated three of the King's four sons, leaving the one you called Junior as the only heir.  When they came for the one you called Junior, the High King inadvertently got in the way, and was killed.  The next day, the new heir was crowned High King.  He was able to out-maneuver both enemies from inside his own government and the separatist traitors.  He was then able to bring together the different factions and took the title of King of All."

"Good for him!"  Mama said sounding as if she approved.  "I knew he had some strength in him."

"If Mama could go anywhere she wished, could she take the monster-go-stick and bring back this sailor guy in time?"  I asked, not knowing if that were even possible.

Both the Elf and Mama got thoughtful looks on their faces.  "That might work,"  The Elf said, and sighed as she pulled a necklace from her neck and handed it back to Mama.   "Take this with you, the Star Sailor will recognize it and come quickly.  If you are able to find him, his ship will be able to return you here in moments."

"I'll be able to go faster on my own go-stick.  Yes the monster is faster, but I have never been able to control it well enough to use it's speed."

Mama put action to words and was soon ready to leave.  The whole time she bombarded me with every bit of knowledge she could think of that might help me care for the Elf.  She gave me what was left of the medicine we had made for the Elf along with instructions for making more.  It would be my job to keep the Elf alive until she returned with help.

I wish I found the "You are resourceful Tandy, you'll figure it out." that Mama said to be comforting, but all I could do is remember how badly I failed when Mama tried to take me on as an apprentice.  

The next two days were some of  the hardest days of my life.  Almost as soon as Mama left the Elf started to get worse.  That evening, a mountain storm raged in from the North, bringing with it sleet and hail.  I thought it was too early in the year for storms, but I had to remind myself that I lived down in the protected valley.  We were much higher up than that, and not particularly protected by the local geography.   With the storm raging, and the medicine supply quickly getting used up, I ended up having to hunt for food and medicine ingredients between squalls, and cook batch after batch of medicine.  The stuff I cooked up didn't seem to work as well as what Mama made, so I decided the only thing I could do was to really slather it on and hope for the best.  

By the second day, the Elf's eyes had rolled up into her head and she started shivering uncontrollably. She no longer responded to me.  I was alone.  Even the Elf's sneering condescension would have been preferable.  The diamond of healthy skin on her belly had once again started to shrink and was turning darker.  I tried everything, even resorting to rubbing random things, mushrooms, lichens, and such, on her skin to see if it would help.  Nothing did.

I started to really start thinking about all the ingredients I had seen Mama use over the years, and what she said they were good for.  

"Think Tandy.  What does willow bark do?"  I chided myself.  "FEVER!  It helps with FEVER!"

I dashed out into the storm to where I had seen a willow tree growing not far away and quickly made a willow bark tea.  As soon as it was cool enough, I practically forced the Elf to drink it.   It helped a little, I think.  After that, I gained a little confidence and my next batch of black goopy medicine was actually black and goopy rather than brown and thin.  I have no idea what I did different, but after that it was all black goop and willow tea, all the time.  The shivering came and went, but wasn't anywhere near as bad.  The lighter patch of skin was still slowly greying, but not as fast I think.

Kinderling 50

In case you are interested in starting this story at the beginning, Kinderling 1 can be found here:

The Tricycle of Thought: Kinderling 1

Please don't judge the story or the writing too harshly, this story is written with little to no editing.  It is just meant to get me writing regularly for practice.  

Now back to our story, already in progress..

I know you've heard, time and time again, to never get too married to a plan.  The original plan had been to find Mouse, hopefully alone if possible, stick him with one of Mama's pins that would immobilize him and snatch him out with the monster-go-stick.  Once we were out of danger, we could pull the harness off him and take him home.  So far, we hadn't seen hide nor hair of him, but we did find an Elf in distress.

Mama started probing the back wall for weaknesses.  I looked at my quiver considering using my remaining explosive arrow, but with how much of a mistake that had been last time, I didn't see how it would do anything but collapse the sewer-come-dungeon and bury us all.

Soon Mama found a loose stone, then another by wiggling the first until it came free.  Soon there was a hole in the back wall of the Elf's cell large enough for Mama and I to crawl through.

Closer up, I could see the Elf really was in dire trouble.  Everywhere the iron touched her skin it had turned black and black tendrils streaked up her arms and legs, and her hands and feet were practically black from the manacles that encircled her wrists and ankles.  The iron encircling her neck was even worse.  The blackness had seeped up past her neck covering her jaw and engulfing her ears nearly to the pointed tip.  I could tell she was in immense pain, but trying not to show it.

"See little ones, I am nearly gone."  She said, "There is nothing you can do."  

Mama just laughed.  "You Elves and your dour fatalism.  Shush now and let me look at this."

The Elf seemed taken aback at being told to shush. 

Mama pulled a small metal probe from her bag.  I recognized it as being one she kept in her medical kit.  I didn't know what Mama usually used it for, but this time she started working it into the locking mechanism for the iron shackle around the Elf's neck.  Soon, the lock sprang open, and the Elf's neck was free.

Mama wasted no time, she handed me the probe and dove back into her bag and started pulling out herbs and other things she brought.  Mama soon had a ball of various herbs and other things.

"What is tha..."  The Elf tried to say, and Mama uncerimoniously shoved the ball into the Elf's mouth.

"Don't try to talk, won't do you no good."  Mama said to the Elf, "That's a ball of Viper's Bane, Three leaf, a couple kinds of Mint, and some Willow bark.  I'm hoping the Three leaf and Viper's Bane will work together to pull out the poison, and the Willow will help with the inflammation.  It's all I got with me.  Once we get you out of here, we'll see what else we can find."

"Tandy, are you just going to sit there?"  Mama asked turning to me.  I realized I should have been working on getting the Elf's hands and feet free.  I hurried and got to work.

The locks proved rough and not very well made.  In fact, the last one was so loose I was able to fit my pinkie finger into the lock and move the mechanism enough to unlock it.  Gorf locksmiths?  Definitely not the state of the art.  

It soon became apparent that the Elf was not going to be able to walk.  Her feet were black, and the skin was cracking in places revealing that the blackness went pretty deep although there was still pink flesh to be seen in the bottom of the cracks, so thankfully the blackness wasn't all the way through.  

We basically had to lay the Elf on her back and drag her through the hole in the wall that Mama made.  

"Hurry!  It won't be long before someone discovers that she is missing." Mama said as she carefully re-stacked the stones in the hole she had made in the cell wall.  Turns out Mama has a talent for understatement because we heard the alarm go up a surprisingly short time later.

We loaded the Elf up on the monster-go-stick and started back the way we came.  Mama and I had been riding our go-sticks through the sewers the whole time because neither of us wanted to walk through the sewer sludge, so we hadn't made any tracks.  It soon occurred to me that we could get lost in this place, one place was effectively identical to another in this place, and without tracks to follow how were we ever going to find our way.

Apparently Mama had already thought of that because she lead on, and soon we found ourselves at the stairs down to the lower sewer levels.  From there it was a hop skip and a jump back to the outlet we entered the sewers from and out to the woods and freedom.

Freedom, and fresh air, came not a second too soon as far as I'm concerned.  That place was easily the worst place I had ever been in my life.

Once we were out, Mama went right to business.  "Tandy, we need a safe place, close by, with lots of fresh water."

I knew just the place.  Flower and I had crash landed there once.

"Never mind that."  the Elf said spitting out the wad of herbs and medicine along with - to my dismay - a good number of black teeth.  "The iron has gotten too far into my system, it's a lost cause."

"You do not die unless I say you die!"  Mama yelled at her, and shoved another wad of herbs in the Elf's mouth.  "Lead away Tandy!"

The flight to the secluded lake where Flower and I landed after our desperate escape from Gorf Slave Soldiers - it seemed like years ago - took longer than I expected.  Night had fallen almost full by the time we got there but I was able to find the dry cave Flower and I rested in.  I was sure that the Mountain Gorfs would be searching for us, but they couldn't fly.  We could.  Without that ability I was fairly sure, or at least hoped, that we wouldn't be found.

"We'll have to risk some light." Mama said, "I need to take care of this Iron poisoning as quickly as possible."

"If we go in a little deeper, there is a jog to the right.  Hopefully the fire pit I dug last time I was here is still in place."  I replied, "When Flower and I escaped, they didn't even look for us here.  I don't think they know this place exists."

Sure enough, the fire pit was as I left it, and the extra wood that Flower and I didn't use was still there, nice and dry.  There wasn't much in the way of bedding.  Mama and I pulled out all we had and made as comfortable a bed as we could for the Elf.  Kinderling blankets are woefully short for an Elf.  Our plan had been for rescuing Mouse, and Mouse was tough.  While we did talk about also finding the Elf in our planning sessions, I don't think either of us expected to actually find one.  

Mama had me put some water on to boil in the little pot from my pack and, mumbling to herself like she does when trying to solve a particularly nasty problem, took off on her go-stick with one of the lights.  The moment she left I started worrying about her being out there giving away her position with that light in the darkness of the night.  As time went on, I grew more and more worried.  I ended up replenishing the water in the pot a few times so that it would still be full and boiling when Mama returned.  The Elf laid there, her breathing becoming more and more raspy.  There was nothing I could do.  I hate that feeling.  It made me surly.  Luckily the Elf didn't bother herself with conversation, I'm  not sure I could have managed, although at least that would have told me she wasn't too far gone yet.  Part of me worried that her silence was because she was too weak to talk.

Time and time again I got on my monster-go-stick intent on going out and looking for Mama, but I knew better.  Mama would be angry with me if I abandoned the Elf that way.  Tears were running down my face by the time Mama finally returned.  True to form, Mama just pushed me out of the way and started tossing things into the pot of boiling water.  Roots, twigs, powder.  Was that dirt?  Ground up something?  

Without skipping a beat, Mama pulled her own small pot out, shoved it into my hands, and simply said boil water.  Hey, I can boil water like a champ.  At least I'm not useless.

By the time I got Mama's pot filled and boiling over the fire.  The stuff that Mama was cooking up in my pot looked like a horrible, tar-like sludge.  The stench was like nothing I had ever smelled before.  It was sharp, coppery, almost sweet but not.  Think of all the negative attributes of your favorite sweet smell, and amp them up to ten, then remove all the pleasant attributes.  Now add a horrid metallic tang on top.  One that sticks to, and hurts the back of your throat every time you breathe in.

While she was stirring the sludge, Mama occasionally tossed something into the other pot.

"That's the best I can do."  Mama said, "It'll either work, or it won't.  Tandy, put that tea into three cups, one for each of us."

Mama gently woke the Elf.  Elves, as far as I had ever heard, supposedly didn't sleep, but that one was most definitely sleeping.  When Mama helped her sit up, I gasped.  While Mama was searching for ingredients, and we were cooking, the black marks from the iron had spread.  The Elf, or at least the parts of her I could see, were all black.  Even her silver hair, except for the very tips, had turned black.  I could tell Mama was just as surprised as I was.  I don't think anyone else would have been able to read that from Mama, but I could.

Mama instantly turned to the business at hand.  With a cry of shock from the Elf, Mama pulled her tunic up revealing her stomach.  There was almost a diamond shape of pale white skin covering the Elf's belly.

"Whew, it's not gone too far yet."  Mama said.

We only had two cups, so I portioned the tea into our two cups left the last third of it in the pot.  That actually didn't work out too badly.  For someone as tall as the Elf, our Kinderling-sized cups were all but useless tiny things.  On top of that, the Elf seemed to have lost the use of her fingers, so she took the pot in two hands, much like a toddler might.  Mama drank her tea down in one go, then insisted the Elf drink.  I drank my tea while the Elf sniffed at hers, seemingly trying to decide if life was worth drinking the tea.  In the end, she drank.

"Good, that should shut down our sense of smell for a few days, but it's worth it.  Now comes the hard part, we have to cover you in this sludge to pull the iron out of your system."  Mama said to the Elf.

The Elf looked at the sludge, sniffed.... then sniffed again with a confused look on her face.

"You won't be able to smell that, or anything else for that matter.  Haven't you been paying attention?"

"What is in it?" the Elf rasped.  She could barely talk, I could tell it was really painful.

"It's best if you just don't know.  Think of it as a mud bath if you must, but we have to get this on you now, or you are going to die."

The Elf sighed put her head down and nodded.

I was shocked as Mama unceremoniously started stripping the Elf out of her clothes.  As I have said before, Kinderlings aren't, in general, prudes.  Kinderling villagers who, due to poor life choices or bad fortune, found themselves destitute in the village often bathed and washed their clothes in the village pond.  Likewise, it wasn't uncommon in the summer to see Kinderlings skinny dipping.  It was generally accepted that s body is a body, and a little skin is nothing to get all worried about.  However, nobody just went up to another person and yanked their clothes off.  That would have been rude.

Mama was being down-right rude at the moment.  I could tell the Elf would have liked to fight back, but didn't have the strength to.

As soon as she was finished stripping the Elf, Mama grabbed a handful of the sludge and started spreading it on the Elf's shoulder.

"What are you waiting for Tandy.  We need to cover every square inch!"

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't want to.  I smelled that stuff before I drank Mama's tea, and that stuff was vile.  The fact that I couldn't smell it now didn't change that.  A hard look from Mama did work to change my attitude and get me moving though.  Only Mama could make such a look.

The Elf was soon covered from head to toe in goop.  She looked so indignant that I wanted to laugh, but was mostly able to keep it inside.  Mama gently laid the Elf back down on her make-shift bed and she was asleep instantly. 

"Nothing to do but wait." Mama said,  "Help me keep a watch on her, parts of that stuff are going to turn red, about the color of rust actually, and we'll need to scoop those off when we see them and re-apply fresh goop."

"Gotya." I replied.

Kinderling 49

 In case you are interested in starting this story at the beginning, Kinderling 1 can be found here:

The Tricycle of Thought: Kinderling 1

Please don't judge the story or the writing too harshly, this story is written with little to no editing.  It is just meant to get me writing regularly for practice.  

Now back to our story, already in progress..

We found a tree not far away and setup a tree camp.  The rain lasted throughout the day and into the night, but finally tapered off in the early morning hours.  By the time the sun came up, the torrent that had been flowing out of the cliff was still there, but was only half the strength as it was.  It was a nice clear day.  The air smelt fresh and wonderful as long as we stayed up-wind of the basin where the sewage landed.  

Which, sadly, wasn't the plan.

Looking at the cliff face, the place where the water came out was oddly circular.  I was expecting it to be a natural formation that the Mountain Gorfs took advantage of, but that wasn't so.  After a good breakfast and packing up our gear, Mama and I mounted our go-sticks and flew up to see it.  Mama, of course, still sat upon hers, while I stood on mine.  

Upon closer inspection, the drainage tunnel had indeed been carved into the stone of the mountain.  It was surprisingly smooth walled and straight, with a bit of an incline to keep the water flowing.  The top of the current flow was a little less than half-way up the tunnel.  Luckily the tunnel was large enough that Mama and I could fly our go-sticks up the tunnel easily and not get our feet wet.  long as we went single file.  We wouldn't have been able to fly side by side.

"This isn't as smelly as I expected."  I said.

"Be happy we're here right after a heavy rain washed out the worst of it."  Mama replied, "If we were here without a big rain for a while we might not even be able to go in there without making ourselves sick."

I was still a little shocked that Mama intended for us to go in there, but I guess it made sense.  Why would the Mountain Gorfs guard their sewer tunnel, especially when the outlet was so high up on a sheer cliff?  

My light devices really came in handy.  I was able to tie on to the handle on my monster-go-stick so it would light our way, leaving my had free.  Not that I wanted to touch anything in this place, but it's easier to ride the monster-go-stick when I have my hands free to steady myself.  I have to say, I was very glad that I could fly up this thing rather than walk.

"Judging by how straight and smooth this is, it almost has to have been built by Dwarves."  Mama commented.

"When we freed everyone from the mushroom farm, there were a couple Dwarves."  I replied, "I wonder if they did it."

"Not unless they were pretty old, I think this would have taken a pretty long time to carve all this out.  Although I might be wrong, I don't know all that much about digging through stone."

It seemed like we were flying for days and eventually the tunnel curved so when I looked back, I was no longer able to see the exit far behind us.  The tunnel was mostly featureless, giving the impression that while we were moving, we weren't getting anywhere.  Eventually, we reached a place where smaller inlets on each side of the tunnel drained into this main line.  A few times, I had to dodge left or right to keep from being hit with a stream of water coming from one of those pipes.  

We eventually hit what I could only assume were the sewers under Mountain Gorf''s stronghold.  I had read about the sewers under the big cities built by the race of Man.  Our parents required both Tommil an me to have a wide-reaching education.  I found it fascinating at the time.  I think Tommil hated it.  Tommil always insisted that he would never leave the village, so he didn't need to know about the wide world around us.  I wasn't much better, insisting that I would never leave the forest, but at least I found the reading interesting.  Our village was too small to need anything as elaborate as a huge underground sewer system, so other than trying, and failing, to get Tommil to play "sewer explorers" with me back then - I was pretty young - I hadn't thought about sewers for a long time.  

With a small amount of exploring, we found stairs to the next higher level and took them.

The sewer seemed surprisingly well made for something built by Gorfs.  Even considering that these particular Gorfs may have had some Dwarven slaves, I wouldn't have expected this level of craftsmanship.  The next level up had walkways on either side of the sewage channel, and decorative stone carvings where branches of the sewer met.  Mama even found where each intersection had markings labeling them.  Of course, it was in Dwarfish.

"I recognize some of these runes from seeing Dwarfish writing before, but I never learned the language." Mama said.  "I remember hearing that there had once been a Dwarfish settlement in these mountains before the time of the last Kinderling King, but that was a long time ago."

"When we freed Flower's tribe from the mushroom farm there were some Dwarves.  A couple of the Kinderlings we also rescued followed them."  I replied, "I didn't get an impression on how far away that Dwarven settlement was.  Wonder if there is any connection between the two."

"No way to know unless we go ask."  Mama said, "Not something we'll get an answer for today."

We continued our search of the sewage system and eventually found where drainage from the streets inside the fortress drained into the sewer.  We were indeed in the fortress proper.  As small as Kinderlings are, we could have easily climbed out, although that would have been a very bad idea.  Two Kinderlings walking these streets would stick out like a sore thumb.  We found a likely spot where we could watch from a sewer drain overlooking - underlooking? - what seemed to be a main street through the fortress and watched.

All in all, Gorfs - at least these Mountain Gorfs - didn't seem to be all that different than other folks.  Having spent most of my life - other than these last handful of weeks - thinking of them as nothing more than vaguely intelligent, yet dangerous, animals that was quite a revelation.  Even knowing Watcher, and Flower, then Flower's tribe didn't prepare me for how downright mundane these Gorfs were.  They had children, and did shopping, and wore hats woven from reeds.  Not sure where they got reeds up here in the mountains, and the shapes were funny to my eyes, but those hats weren't half bad from what I could see.  Mostly they wore leather and skins, some of which I didn't recognize and did NOT want to know what they were off of, but those too seemed well-made.  I even saw a few Gorfs wearing woven wool.  Sure, there were Kinderling villagers who keep sheep, and wool clothing is ubiquitous in the Kinderling village, but I never expected to see Gorfs wearing it.  I then noticed a Gorf female leading one of those woolly mountain goats past, which probably explained the wool clothing.

I could sit and watch this for hours.  Good thing too, because hours was exactly how long I had to watch.

Getting along evening, I heard the familiar tinkling sound of chains dragging on the ground as a group of slaves were martialed past.  I was sad to see that Iowne and her companions had been recaptured.  They looked beaten and about to give up.  I think I also saw a couple of Gorf prisoners who looked like they might have been some of the Gorf soldiers that we had freed.  Apparently recaptured and put in chains.  Guess it's better than the harness, but how much better?  I don't know.

Mama and I moved with the slave-chain gang, watching them from the sewer and then running to find the next drain they would probably pass.   We thought we lost them a couple of times, but managed to re-find them before they were herded down a stairway under a building.  

We made our way around to where we thought we would be close enough to the building.  It was the stench that finally lead us to where we wanted to go.  Yes, the odor in the sewers was stifling, but dungeons also stink horribly, but it's a different kind of stink.  One that smells more of contained rot and death.  At least the sewers get rinsed out from time to time when it rains.  The dungeons, not so much.  Once we found them, it became apparent that the dungeons were just another part of the sewer that had been walled off into cells.  Whoever built them was a much poorer mason than the Dwarves who built the sewer system so there were small holes and gaps that we could peek through.

The scene was horrifying.  People - Gorfs and Men - were pushed into feces crusted cages.  I was able to find a place that had a half-way decent look into Iowne and her people's cell, and at least that was as clean as they could manage.  

"There is the Elf!  She is here!"  Mama pulled me away so that we wouldn't be heard and whispered.  "I need to try to find a way to talk to her."

With some effort, we worked our way through the sewers and around the dungeon to where the back of the Elf's cell should be.  It took a few tries to find the right place, but we eventually found it.

"Are you enjoying your scurrying in the walls little one?"  The elf asked, "Do I look pathetic to you?"

I was astonished that the Elf used Kinderling to address us.  How did she know?

Mama answered in Elvish.  Mama had been right, Elvish did sound a lot like Kinderling.  I didn't follow what she said very well, I did learn a little bit of Elvish in school, but not enough to be fluent. 

"Your Elvish is atrocious."  The elf replied.  "Did you ask something about my mother's goat?"

"We've come to rescue you."  Mama whispered, angerly,  "and you know good and well what I said.  I know my elvish isn't that horrible.  I have been among your kind and even healed one.  I saved her life."  

The elf seemed to get more serious.  "Ah, You would be the Kinderling Mystic then.  This is unexpected.  I have heard stories about you.  Are you allied with that twisted little Kinderling sorcerer then?  Have you come to gloat?"

"Could she be talking about Daggi?"  I whispered to Mama, "I didn't know he came up here."

"Yes, Daggi. That' is what he was called."  The Elf said, "No point in whispering, little one, they may have chained me with cold iron, but they didn't think to shove it in my ears."

"No wonder she hasn't broken out on her own."  Mama said quietly, "The cold iron would be sapping at her strength.  It's a wonder she's still alive."

"Not for long, sadly."  The Elf said,  "I can feel myself returning to the earth."

"Returning to the earth?"  I asked Mama.  

"She means the iron is going to kill her soon."  Mama explained.  "How much longer do you have?  Could I go find your people and bring them back in time?"

"Why taunt me so?  Your sorcerer will get no benefit from it."

I was confused.  Did she mean Daggi?  

"We are not with Daggi.  He is as much our enemy as he is yours."  Mama said.  As  usual Mama was faster to figure things out than I was.  "Now how much longer do you have?  Would it be enough time to reach your people so they can send a rescue party?"  

The Elf laughed, it was a musical sound, if a little raspy.  "No, you are an outsider.  They will not come on your word alone.  My time is counted in days, if not hours." 

"So, we do this the hard way then."  Mama replied.