Anna Helldove paced in a small circle within her small cell.  The ceiling was only inches over her head, and the bed was sized for a dwarf.  She had already tried to take a nap, but she had been forced to lay at a diagonal in order to stretch out, and that left either her head or her feet trapped up under the small bed.

She paused before the tiny, barred window that was barely large enough for her face to look out.  She was on the fifth floor of the great tower, and she could see the sun setting on the distant horizon -- and little else.  A few wispy clouds captured the reds and golds of the sunset in beautiful colors.

Anna took a deep breath, and then sighed.  She sat down on the small bed, and rested one hand on her palm, her elbow on her knee.

Her other hand tugged absently at the choker she wore at the base of her neck, half covered by her leather and half-plate.  Inwardly, she cursed her stupidity.  The choker would, supposedly, have protected her from the blessings of Galgiran that supposedly guarded Lok Magius against all spies and intruders.  She had only to get inside and begin looking around -- or so she had thought.

The mercenary stared at the floor, half-wishing she'd never taken the assignment.  The up-front pay had been too good to be true.  Her casual questions about Lok Giran had elicited too-eager speakers to wax loquaciously on the majesty and beauty of the inside of the Fortress of the Soul.  She had even mapped out the fortress in her mind, noting escape routes (none known), areas of interest (all of the back of the fortress), and possible danger points (everywhere).  She had volunteered for Sir Bridar's special rangers, who patrolled all the region of Mount Rilan.  The huge desert elf, to whose arm pits she barely reached, had not only said no, but he had been watching her since she had arrived at Rilan from the city of Kashin.

Anna had not realized her mercenary activities were so well known that the reeve of Rilan would know her on sight.

She also realized that she, herself, was not so important in the grand scheme of the mercenaries operating out of Kashin, and that meant her current employer had been compromised.

Ann leapt to her feet, and growled, watching the twilight of the west through her tiny window.

If the Baron-and-the-Bishop questioned her, she would have to give up her employer's name.  She would have to choose, then, to either die by the hand of the Baron-and-the-Bishop, or by the hand of Doom Rex.

She banged her fist against the stone of the wall, frustrated with her inability to see a way out.  Her choker would protect her against detection spells and prayers for guidance, and it was only as she was being led off to her cell that it would probably have protected her against the dwarf-woman's prayer to Galgiran.  Anna had let her fear and lack of understanding of priests for just a moment, and it had cost her dearly.

The guards had not even bothered to search her.  She pulled one of her many blades from beneath a plate of armor, and stared at it dully.  The mercenary hoped she could get it into some dwarf's face, for their armor looked nearly invulnerable.

The door to her cell was a block of stone, hinged to the wall by five iron hinges bolted in -- and it was on the outside of her cell.  The door was held locked by a stone and steel bolt that was on the other side of the door, and completely inaccessible from the inside.  The stone of the doorway's edges was angled and beveled, so that even if she could wedge one of her thin blades into the gap between the door and the wall, she could do nothing with it.  The hinges themselves were the only things holding the cleverly cut stone door up, so that if someone were to disable the hinges or shatter them, the weight of the door would keep her sealed in.

One of Anna's hands went to a scar on her upper arm that her mind remembered more than her body, especially since it was underneath a section of her darkened metal armor.

Doom Rex had bested her without even looking at her, as though it had been beneath his dignity to recognize a warrior as poor as herself.  Anna had killed over thirty men -- five of them in hand-to-hand combat.  The Doom had an aura of menace that indicated he could kill thirty times her thirty dead men, and not break a sweat.

His double-bladed sword was a weapon she could not fathom, and had never encountered before, and his full plate armor covered him from head to toe in steel.  She had never seen more of him than his too-intelligent gray eyes.

Pinned as Anna had been on the floor, helpless beneath his seemingly negligent power to kill, Anna had understood that failure to accept the assignment would result in her ceasing to exist -- and possibly worse.  Anna's mother still lived in Takanal, with her younger sister.  The Doom had twisted the blade in her arm, without even looking at her, and then stepped away.

Anna had been wounded before, and she knew that she would bleed to death quickly.  As she began to feel light-headed and her blood poured out of her in a spreading pool on the ground, she had seen the kind of assignment in store for her.  What had angered her the most, though, was her inability to convince herself to attack with the last of her life.  Even knowing she would die, she had been unable to throw herself upon the Doom's blades and die like a warrior; his power over her, and her fear of him, had been that strong.  She still hated herself for that moment of weakness.

She punched the wall, again, feeling the strength in the arm through which she had nearly bled to death.  She felt the strength of her muscle throughout her body, and resolved to battle her way through the dwarves, or die trying.

As though the gods were granting her a chance at her wish, she heard the lock of the door clank open.  The door slowly began to slide open, even as she pulled throwing blades from beneath her armor, slipping one between each knuckle, both hands behind her back and ready to deal death the moment she had a clear shot.

The room was nearly dark in the dim light of twilight, and no torchlight spilled into the cell to grant her a target or light to see by.  Remembering that dwarves could see in the darkness far better than humans, she waited until the door was open only a few feet, and three two blades at what she judged to be face level on a dwarf.

She jumped back against the wall, and kicked off with both feet.  She intended to use all her weight to force the door the rest of the way open, but as her feet hit the stone of the door, she realized she had made yet another mistake that day.

A huge, slender, tattooed hand reached in and negligently grabbed her entire head, the palm squashing her nose with the crack of broken bone.  The hand pulled her momentum over her feet and let go, slamming her against the stone of the door.

Slightly dazed, Anna lashed out with both fists still full of blades.  The blades met boiled leather that turned aside her strikes, and then two of the huge, tattooed hands easily pinned her arms.  With a deceitfully easy grace, she was spun around so that her arms were pinning her against the torso of what had to be Sir Bridar, the tall desert elf from Rilan.

Anna thought she would have had more fire in her, but something in her just gave out.  She collapsed, letting the giant elf hold her weight up, and just shook her head, amazed at her own sudden lack of fear, fire, or anything resembling will within her.  She realized she no longer cared whether she lived or died; whether her mother or sister lived was out of her hands; all of her life was suddenly out of her hands.  She was in the hands of a reeve -- and authority figure -- and simply did not care.

Sholkhan Bridaraarayus squeezed his hands, and forced the mercenary to drop her knives.  One of the two she had thrown at him, as he had opened the door to the cell, was lodged in the leather of his hip.  The blade had not even penetrated his thick leathers, and he ignored it for the moment, making a mental note to ensure that it wasn't poisoned.  He had been right to have one of his rangers track the mercenary up onto the mountain, and it had given him more time to check into the woman's past.

One of the dwarven guards asked, "Want me to brain her, or d'ye have her?"  He clapped the head of a morning star into a gauntleted hand, making a distinctly unfriendly sound.

The elven reeve said in a medium tenor, "No.  I have her.  Just shut us inside for a moment.  I'll knock when I'm ready to come out."

The dwarf shrugged, and said, "Yuir call."  He turned to his comrade, who continued to hold the horribly balanced door open.  "Let it go."

The door closed itself on Sir Bridar and Anna Helldove, and then the bolt slid home, locking them inside.

Sholkhan said, "I'm going to let you go.  Understand, though, that any further attacks against me will result in your instant death."

Anna remained relaxed in his grip, and when he let go, she took only a single step away from him, and then swayed slightly on her feet.  She realized, in a dim awareness, that the helplessness she felt -- even armored and armed as she was -- was something that many of the people she had cut down must have felt in those last few minutes.

For some reason, a bandit woman she had cut down sprang to mind.  The bandit's last breath had been an indrawn gasp of surprise as she had spun to face her attacker.  Her grim determination had turned to instant regret and defeat as she had seen Anna's dagger already flashing past her throat.  The bandit couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, with freckles and a shock of short red hair peeking out from beneath her leather helm.

Anna's hand went to her throat, as though she had been the bandit, herself.  Perhaps she saw the world from the other side, for the first time.

Sir Bridar was silent.

She turned, to look at him.  He blended in with the dim shadows of the cell, despite his bulk.  His bronze-colored skin was heavily tattooed with black, outline-breaking shapes.  The desert elf's seven-foot frame was strongly muscled, beneath thick leather armor of camouflaged charcoal gray and rich brown -- but in the dim light coming in through the single window, the only things clearly visible were his orange, slightly glowing eyes.

The mercenary took an involuntary step back, for the reeve's presence was powerful and intimidating, especially in such a confined space.  He merely watched her, though, his orange eyes looking to her like some great predator's.

Anna stared at him, one hand still on her throat, and wondered not for the first time if the rumors about desert elves being magically crafted out of their own ranks was true.  Some she had spoken with thought the rumors a lie, spread by the desert elves to hide demon blood, magical enhancements they made themselves, or veneration to some horrible god.  The orange eyes that assessed her were chillingly familiar, for she had seen those eyes in the mirror, and in the face of every veteran she had ever served with.

His middle-tenor voice said softly, "Captain Razorbraid tells me that you cannot name your master, perhaps under geas.  Or fear.  We can protect you, if that is the case."

A brief flicker of hope rose within her, and she ruthlessly crushed it.  "You can't protect me, from him."

He watched her for a moment without speaking, lightly resting with his back against the door, his legs bent to accommodate his height, his arms swept out and at the ready.

Sir Bridar asked, "If not me, then who?"

Anna struggled for a moment, her hand going from her throat to her broken nose streaming blood onto her lips.  Her tongue refused to work, and she spent a few moments desperately trying to crush the hope that flared within her.  She got a grip of her faculties, and countered him with, "And who could you get, powerful enough to protect... me.  And mine."

"If the danger is as great as you claim, then I can ask the Baron-and-the-Bishop to intercede."

When he said nothing after that, Anna realized that she had to choose past the minor pain of her nose.  If she chose wrong, then more than her life was on the line.  She had made such decisions before in combat, but never with her family's lives hanging in the balance -- in more ways than one.  If Doom Rex failed to kill her family, then the horde of invading ograns might do so, if she couldn't find a way to protect them.

The defenses at Lok Giran -- and the strength of the very cell she was in -- tilted the balance within her.

She said, "His name is Doom Re--" and wracking pain engulfed her for a split second and then it was gone.  She staggered, putting a hand to the wall, and another to her neck.  The choker fell to ashes against her fingers, and she could feel slightly burned, tender flesh where it had been.

Sir Bridar's eyes narrowed, and he asked, "Are you all right?"

Anna blinked, assessing the pain.  Stars and spots whirled in her vision, partially blotting out what little vision was left to her in the dim light.  After a bit, she nodded tenderly, expecting her head to explode in pain.

Sholkhar said, "The geas that was laid upon you, is undone."

Behind him, the door opened again, and the giant elf made to make room for the newcomer.  No light spilled into the room, but the figure that moved in was plainly visible, as his armor -- save where a dark tabard covered it -- reflected every last bit of light, and his white beard nearly glowed in the feeble light.  The dwarf was powerfully built, even for a dwarf, and probably weighed half again as much as Anna did, though he was a full two feet shorter than she was.

The dwarf pulled a hammer with a head as big as his own from over his back, and rapped the two-foot haft on the floor.  The head of the hammer was engulfed in flame, illuminating the short dwarf and the tall desert elf, and reflecting off of golden rings set in the dwarf's gauntlet, and golden runes etched in polished mithral along the edges of his armor.

The dwarf's intense blue eyes had seen things that mere mortals were not meant to see, and it showed in the way she looked at her.  A chill went down Anna's spine, as she realized who the dwarf was.

With a body that felt as though it did not belong to her, she knelt down, head bowed, before the Baron-and-the-Bishop of Mount Rilan, Lok Giran, Lok Magius, and the town of Rilan.

The Baron-and-the-Bishop shared a look with Sir Bridar and then turned his eyes on Loren.  "An elven priest had a spell on you.  What happened?"

Anna Helldove stared at the dwarf's armored feet, noting the intricate detail of his armor, and the tiny golden runes along the edges of each plate of armor.  She swallowed, and said, "Doom Rex hired me to get into Lok Giran.  He said that I could do it, where he could not.  His sorceress made sure of it."

She dared to look up and meet his gaze, nearly at eye level with her own, though he was standing and she was kneeling.  "Lord Dwarfendale, my family's lives are forfeit, if...  You have to help me."  A tear fell down her cheek, and she cursed her weakness, while at the same time begging him to help her.

The most powerful dwarf in the mountain tossed his fiery hammer to his other hand, and laid his gauntlet upon her bowed head.  She felt a rush of heat flutter her hair, and a sharp crack as her nose realigned itself.  The metal gauntlet upon her head was almost painful when she realized she could feel it, and then it withdrew.  Her hand went to her throat, and she could touch it without pain.  Her nose, too, was healed.

Dwarfendale tossed his hammer back to his dominant hand.  Eyes lit by the fire-enshrouded head, he said, "I've got a war to run.  But..."  He looked into the fire for a moment, and then snapped his eyes back to hers.  "Tell me where your family is, and I'll have them rescued.  Tonight."  He turned to share a look with his reeve, and then turned back to the mercenary.  "Give him the details, and we'll have them out tonight."  He pointed a gauntleted finger at her.  "You stay here, though."

The Baron-and-the-Bishop grunted, and then addressed Sir Bridar.  "Pump her for the rest of it, after her family's safe.  I'll have the twins waiting outside.  Pump her for all she's worth."

The dwarven priest-lord turned to look at Anna one last time, and his eyes were filled with weariness, and a kind of zealous light that she realized could crush anyone that stood in his way.

Outside in the corridor, Dwarfendale turned to Loren Razorbraid, who had stood just outside of sight.  "The geas that held her was a weak one -- bound with sacrificial blood.  The spells that bound her were weak, too.  And all of it felt like the Shadow Goddess' work."

Loren growled out, "That elf bitch and her pet doom are getting on my nerves."  She hrmphed.  "I already sent a runner for the twins.  They're tired, from working on that frost mage, though."

Dwarfendale grinned in an evil way that made the dwarf captain rub her hands together and smile.  The priest-lord said, "Go with em.  If they run into Fume Pex along the way, then so much the better.  Take a hippotaun or two."

Loren banged a gauntleted fist onto her tabard-clan chainmail, and grinned.  "Yes, my lord!"

He scowled, and she grinned, knowing how much he hated being reminded of his many titles.

As the Baron-and-the-Bishop trumped off, he muttered, "Damned cargdins..."

Loren's eyes went wide with shock, and she sputtered for several seconds, unable to formulate words.  "DWARFENDALE!"