Chapter 38: A Pair of Slavers

The first few hours of the second day’s march towards the Abby of Xoth’s ruins were uneventful, with the girls chatting idly among themselves to pass the time. However, that changed in an instant just as the day was drawing towards noon, when all three of the adventurers heard indistinct shouting coming from up ahead. The ground had grown much hillier during the course of their journey, and they currently stood at the bottom of a rather large incline, which both confused the sounds and prevented any of the girls from surveying the situation.

After the complete debacle of their last encounter on the highway, none of the adventurers needed any guidance on keeping silent. At once, they froze in place, straining their ears, but were still only able to make out the faint echoes of what sounded to Lexi at least as the mingled shouts coming from representatives of both sexes. Always quick thinking, Gretel again tied Thomas the mule’s bridle to a nearby tree, to keep him — and their supplies — safe from whatever might be up ahead. As the trio crept up the hill, making as close to no noise as was possible, the voices at first began to become more clear, but were still too difficult to make out until they crested the ridge.

“Let me go!” a distressed female voice cried out.

This was met with raucous laughter from a pair of men. “Not a chance, knife ears,” one of the men replied, still chuckling maliciously.

Knife ears? Lexi mouthed silently to Gretel.

The mage mouthed back a single word — elf — which immediately cued Lexi in on the fact that this was some kind of nasty slur in Aeternia.

“Aye,” the other man chimed in, laughing darkly as well. “You’ll fetch us top price at the market.”

“Slavers,” came Samantha’s deadly whisper before Lexi could voice the question. A look came over the monk that sent a chill down the paladin’s spine then, the ice cold glare that stopping her cold. “This cannot be allowed,” the monk said — no longer bothering to whisper. Standing up to her full and eminently impressive height, Samantha continued even more loudly. “I will not permit it.”

Lexi and Gretel looked to one another nervously, a mild panic setting in between the paladin and mage as Samantha’s uncharacteristically brash and incautious behavior not only continued but grew rapidly more pronounced. Shoulders square and iron staff clenched tightly in her huge fists, the monk began to climb to the top of the hill, heedless of the obvious consternation written on her companions’ faces.

“Fuck it,” Lexi said to Gretel, shrugging her armored shoulders and scrambling to catch up with Samantha’s long strides.

“Well shit,” Gretel mumbled. “Wait for me!”

Samantha reached the hilltop first, standing atop the ridge with her rippling bronze muscles bathed in sunlight, looking every inch like the fierce warrior monk Lexi knew her to be. The paladin joined her companion a few seconds later, with Gretel scrambling up beside Lexi soon after, panting mildly from the unexpected exertion climbing the rather steep hill so quickly.

Looking down at the scene in the valley below, it appeared to the adventurers that Samantha’s assessment was entirely correct. Though it was still hard for Lexi to make out the precise details through the dense canopy of trees separating the two groups, what appeared to be happening in the valley down off the roadside was that an elf maiden had been caught in some kind of a snare set by the two men — presumably slavers — who were accosting the girl.

The elf maid was hanging upside down from a tree, bound at the ankle by the rope snare into which she must have stepped, but her hands were otherwise free, and worked furiously at the slipknot around her ankle, trying to free herself before the men closed in. And, before Lexi could even register what she had seen, a flash of gleaming steel appeared in the elf girl’s hand, severing the rope. She tumbled into the leaves below, but quickly regained her feet, backing up slowly and holding the small knife between her and the two large men.

The elf maid was a waif-like slip of a thing, barely topping in at five feet, but as slender as any young girl Lexi had lain eyes on. Her dirty blonde hair was bound into a braid that wrapped around the back of her head like a crown — reminding Lexi very strongly of photos she had seen of Eastern European women on Earth dressed in their traditional costumes. Long and gracefully pointed ears poked out from either side of the girl’s head, framing a pair of enormous eyes that were as brilliantly green as an an Irish countryside.

She was dressed in an unassuming outfit that would not look out of place on any country farm girl, a simple dark green skirt topped with a short sleeved white blouse and a tightly laced black bodice. The only thing that immediately struck Lexi as unusual about the elf girl’s outfit was that her skirt appeared to be intentionally slit high up one side, giving her more freedom of movement as well as showing off a single pale leg clad in a thigh-high knit stocking and a leather boot which came to just above her knee.

Lexi’s heart cried out to help the girl. Despite her diminutive size and the fact that she was armed with only a small utility knife, the look of fierce determination on her face struck Lexi as being worthy of any warrior. The glint in her eyes showed Lexi that there was likely much more to this slender elf maid than first met the eye.

“You’re right,” the paladin said to Samantha. “We have to help her.”

The mask of righteous indignation which clad Samantha’s face temporarily melted, as a true smile — not just the hints Lexi normally saw — blossomed across it. So relieved was the monk that her lover needed no convincing in this matter, that she inadvertently lowered the hard facade which normally concealed her emotions. The steely eyed gaze returned as Samantha gave Lexi a quick nod and turned back to survey their new foes. But, Lexi was glad to see that the faintest trace of the smile that had warmed the monk’s face remained still.

“I guess I’m in too,” Gretel groaned dramatically. “Just make sure that you don’t do anything that’s going to get me all gross again, Lexi. In other words, no experimenting with any new spells. Got it?”