Tim had to admit, he really messed up this time."Who sent you?!" they asked for the umpteenth time. Tim braced himself; what would it be this time? The fist? The boot? The whip?
But no. This time, they were getting creative. "Talk, or the little monster dies!"
Tim blinked, tried to blink through puffy eyelids. They were holding knives against the lynxmouse caught in the cage opposite him.
"Squii!" the lynxmouse spoke angrily. He cursed eloquently, cursing their mothers, their fathers, their entire families, their dogs, he even cursed their cheese…
But of course, while Tim had a vague idea of what the lynxmouse was saying, their captors did not. They simply started knifing the brave little critter.
Tim stared woodenly, mutely. One more hero, fallen in service of the Frontier. It wasn"t the first. At least this one wasn"t falling right out the bottom of the ground and falling down a cliff.
Mustn"t show any anger, any pain at the lynxmouse being killed. Must pretend it doesn"t matter. Or else they really would use more and more lynxmice to threaten him.
But abruptly, there was an odd thud. Tim felt it in the ground under him. Somewhere in the distance, people started shouting.
"What"s going on?" one of the three captors torturing Tim asked.
"Ignore it! Bring out another little monster! I don"t believe he"ll keep quiet while we kill more and more of his beloved pets!"
"They"re not my pets." Tim spoke at last. Then, he grinned, despite the pain all over his face, he grinned.
"What"s so funny?" they asked him. "There"s no doubt these things mean something to you! We found half your pack stuffed with cheese! The little things even tried to fight to save you! Don"t pretend you don"t care about them!"
"Maybe. But they"re just not my pets." Tim chuckled.
He could hear it now. Shouts and screams were rising in the distance. The fools in front of him still ignored it, ignored everything, trying to get him to talk. Well, then. At this point, it wouldn"t matter any more, would it?
"What do you mean?" one of them asked, the one playing the "nice" guy.
"I mean…" Tim chortled. "I"m not their master. They"re not MY pets."
The ground shook. Screams echoed all around, to their left, above them, even below. The torturers were looking around wildly now, on the verge of making a run for it themselves, and never mind the prisoner.
"If you"re not their master… then who is?" finally someone asked the important question.
At that, Tim couldn"t hold it any longer. He burst out laughing, roaring uproariously as the whole wall behind them fell away and a hundred wolfcats charged in to tear the three torturers apart.
Absolute chaos reigned as wolfcats and lynxmice and bears ripped through the camp. Ripples of light streaked down from the sky; explosions tore through the night. Goodness, was that the cannons of the Roving Albatross? Remian had literally brought in the big guns this time.
A streak of blue lit up the night as if in agreement. Tim recognized it; even the Foresight was here? And what was that descending from above?! It looked like a swarm of giant bees, each the size of his fist. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, stinging, buzzing, swarming all over the defense lines.
His friends sure weren"t kidding around. This was serious. But yet for all their seriousness, Tim just couldn"t help himself. In the midst of the screams and the storm of firepower, he laughed and laughed and laughed.
A dozen lynxmice were on him now, gnawing away at his bonds. A dozen more pounced upon the cages keeping their friends captive; one of them had the keys. Other lynxmice scurried about the prison, looting everything they considered valuable. Fierce barks, chittering and squeaking rose up on all sides. In the midst of a flood of lynxmice and wolfcats, Tim got to his feet.
"You guys enjoy yourselves. I"m going to meet Remian." Tim told them, and made his way toward the airships.
Twenty wolfcats went with him. Next time, Tim swore, I"m bringing a squad of these guys with me. Lynxmice just weren"t much good in a fight. Tim had ten of them with him when he was captured. Six guys had totally trounced the lot of them, Tim included. Now if he had ten of these wolfcats with him, that fight would have gone very, very differently.
The fighting was over by the time he got to the camp perimeter. There was no more shouts, no more screams, no more shooting. The Roving Albatross lowered rope ladders; Joshu and Denise were lowered with them. They fastened ropes around Tim and he was unceremoniously hauled up to the Albatross.
"Tim!" Remian looked at him and his face lost color. His fist tightened. But he put on a brave smile, and said, "What did you do to your face?"
"I thought I"d try and disguise myself. How did you recognize me?" Tim joked.
"I almost didn"t." Remian joked back, but all too quickly, his smile slipped and a grim look replaced it. "Phoebe!"
"Ready!" an angel descended upon Tim, her eyes filled with light as she inspected him, and touched him, and…
"Ow!" Tim winced at a particularly painful swab. She was cleaning his wounds with alcohol and stung like a giant bee. On top of that, she was laying hands on him, hands glowing with magic light, and… "OW!!"
"Bear with it." She said in a voice like honey. "It"ll only take a second."
"Is healing magic usually this painful?" Remian asked, studying it intently.
"Emergency treatments focus on speed, not comfort." Phoebe explained. "It helps when the patients are usually unconscious during these proceedings."
"GWUAAAH!" Tim groaned as she laid hands on his ribs and they started fusing back into place.
"What if they"re not?" Remian asked. "What if they"re awake while you treat them?"
"Then they"ll usually be unconscious by the time I"m done." Phoebe explained. She glanced at Tim. "In fact, I think…"
She laid her hand on his forehead. Dim yellow light carried Tim away into a mellow, dreamy stupor.
***
When he awoke, it was morning. He was on a bedroll on the deck of the Roving Albatross next to three lynxmice laying on towels. The smell of beef bacon drifted from somebody"s plate; it was hot, freshly cooked. That must have been what woke him up.
"Here." Remian was there, holding out a mug. Tim took it; inspected the brown liquid inside. Hot cocoa, according to the smell. Remian left it in his hands. "Drink slowly."
Tim sipped. "Where are we?"
"We"re still at the Black Ruins." Remian said. "Any idea what these men wanted in here? Who they were, who they worked for?"
"My guess? It"s the Desert King." Tim grunted. "They use the same crystal communications as the Secret Waves used. If I"m not mistaken, it"s even the same voice on the other side of the crystals."
Remian took out one of those crystals, one of those things he"d attempted to steal and gotten captured for. "Charlie says these are Bond Crystals. They form matching pairs; whoever has one side can speak with the other side, but they need to feed the crystals mana at exactly the same time. There were no less than six of these crystals in the camp, and I have no idea who is on the other side of all six, whether it"s the same person or if we"re dealing with a consortium."
"Careful. They can track the crystals." Tim warned him.
"Not without personalized sigils. And the guys who owned these are dead." Remian cleared his throat. "Only their owners can track them and their sigils have faded away with their deaths already."
"So the guys on the other sides of the crystals can"t find us, but we can"t find them either, and there"s no way to find out who they are unless we just happen to activate the crystals at the exact same time." Tim shook his head. "I don"t suppose you thought to keep anyone alive for information?"
"Uh… no." Remian grimaced. "We made a clean sweep. No survivors."
"Great." Tim sighed. "More work for me."
"We were mainly just concerned with getting you back alive." Remian pointed out.
"Thanks for that, by the way." Tim stretched, testing his body. "I think I"m okay."
"Phoebe"s good at her job." Remian couldn"t keep a slip of admiration from his voice.
Tim grimaced. "Yeah, but… I"d rather not have to go through that again."
"That"s incentive for keeping yourself out of trouble. Otherwise people might just hurt themselves over and over again to get her attention."
Tim let out a half-snort of laughter. "What were you thinking, bringing her around? She"s a walking beacon for man-made accidents."
"Wasn"t my idea."
"Just how many guys have fallen for her already?"
"Including you and me? All of them, probably." Remian joked.
Tim slipped him a sideways glance. Jokes aside, he wasn"t quite sure how serious Remian was, or how serious he himself was. Before yesterday, he might have allowed himself to daydream a little… or a lot… but then he remembered that matter-of-fact look on her face when she treated him, that completely unruffled demeanor while he was gasping in pain.
Thinking about it now, Tim just had this oddly cold feeling, like a chill running down his back. He couldn"t explain why, only that he felt it. There was a reason, or multiple reasons, somewhere, but he couldn"t put his finger on why right now.
But anyway. Back to the important points. "They"re looking for something in the ruins. There are some crates sorted out in the underground bas.e.m.e.nt of the third cabin…"
"Yes, we found it." Remian glanced downward, as if seeing the campsite through the hull of the airship. "How long do you think the dig site has been here? They actually had the time to build a sizeable village of cabins and wooden structures."
"Years, maybe." Tim shifted.
"Yet, we never knew there was a settlement here. There"s no indication of it on any map or any report."
"This whole area was a no-go. Craggy Falls was Spike"s territory. None of our scouts would even come close to this place. At least, not close enough to find a settlement in the middle of the Black Ruins. I don"t know what they were after, but those crates had stuff I have never seen before."
"Agreed. I saw them too. None of us have a clue what they are." Remian shifted. "I don"t even recognize the runes or sigils on those devices. I can sense magic in them, but that"s about it. Charlie says we should ask an expert. He wants to bring them back to Ashdale."
"What do you think?" Tim asked.
"I think we should bring an expert here to study them. I get the feeling that these relics are not just magical and valuable, they might be dangerous."
"Speaking of danger… did you see the underground section?" Tim asked.
"I did. The Wilds wouldn"t set foot in that place. They all say they smelled danger."
"I don"t know about smells, but even I get the sense that place is bad news." Tim shook his head. "I woudn"t go in there without a well-prepared adventuring team. I"m thinking at least Slayer-cla.s.s warriors."
"That can wait. Right now, we need to get back. We"re bringing the relics back with us."
"And then?"
"Then we cover our tracks. We"ll get Spike to come around and stomp the whole settlement into the ground."