Benger enters the cavern behind her and lets out a startled whistle. “Great Goddess! What are we going to do with all this?”
“Try to repurchase the people that were sold into slavery,” Emlyn says calmly, “All of this was taken from them, so it seems… right to use it to try to get them back.”
“I think this is more than we can handle alone,” Begner says, pulling off his gloves, “Come join me in a prayer.”
Nodding, Emlyn agrees and takes his hand, and the pair begins to pray. A few moments later, a dry chuckle ripples through her thoughts. “What have you brought me, daughter? Let’s see… Piles of treasure, offers of conversion, and freed slaves – all on the first day of what is supposed to be an enjoyable trip.”
“The boy that they stole is the younger brother of one of the Temple’s staff. I couldn’t abandon his entire family to these slaver bandits. That’s poor repayment for his service.”
“True enough. I’m not entirely disapproving, but you’ve been a bit… ruthless. Mercy and humanity are supposed to temper the justice we mete out.”
“After I found what I found in the forest, I think the fact that any of them still live is far more merciful than these miscreants deserve. I planned to include them as part of the buyback offer to the slavers in Zoran Bay.”
Grimacing at what she sees in Emlyn’s memory, the Goddess continues, “I... see. Be that as it may, you’re supposed to be recovering. Not dashing through the forest canopy like a mad squirrel. Impressive, but not restful. We have other temples, not just Harito, and I’ll send some people to wrap up your rescue mission.”
“I’d like to give out an item to each of our living captives to help them re-establish their lives, if that’s permissible. They’ve been held here for months. Everyone might have assumed that they died.”
“If you wanted to keep all of it, that would be permissible since you discovered it. You should include yourself in that re-establishment effort. We have funds available to try to buy them back. Assuming that we can track down everyone these miscreants sold.”
“I have their leader. He’s a bit of a pincushion at the moment, but there’s not an arrow in anything vital. It should be enough to keep him from running or trying to stir up trouble.”
“If it's not?”
“Then I’ll add a few more decorations to him,” Emlyn replies darkly. “And if I run out of non-vital bits, I’ll pull the arrows out and start over.”
“He’s garnered your ire, I take it.”
“He’s got heaps of treasure. Rugs, silks, tapestries, jewels. I even saw a set of silver tableware. Yet they’re living in caves, filthy and in rags, and continuing to capture people, starve them, force them to live in their excrement, and then march them over the mountains so they can sell them into slavery for a few more coins. How much treasure is enough? There’s more here than I think I could spend in a lifetime even if I paid Milvara’s regular price for everything, ate in the best restaurants and built a stable to raise war and racing horses,” Emlyn replies, “So yes, seeing how he’s treated people with the resources he had available has made me… angry.”
“Let me deal with this,” the Goddess replies, “Your emotions are still a bit near the surface. Take what you want from the treasure horde, hand out a little of it, and anything left we will put to good use. You’re going to want your horse, maybe some custom-made bits of kit, and then there’s the project I’m told you want to launch.”
“I leave this in your hands,” Emlyn nods, “I’ll sort through everything, and we’ll load up the bits I want. I’ll hand out some of this loot and give Jathon’s family something for their trouble since they’ve been kind enough to stick around and help us care for all these people.”
“That seems quite reasonable,” the Goddess replies, “I'll gather up some staff to handle everything else here and leave you to it.”
Sensing that the Goddess has withdrawn from them, Emlyn grins at Benger, “Why don’t you pick out a present for your mother? I’m certain that she’ll deserve it if she can help me get all these stains out of my new gambeson.”
Emlyn kneels and begins sorting through the trove, selecting items for herself and setting others aside.
Benger looks over her shoulder for anything that his mother might want and finally comments, “All of this is much too fancy for my mother. Once you meet her, you’ll understand. She’s a farmer’s wife and all of this… looks like it should be worn at one of the king’s balls.”
Waving a hand at the rugs, “Maybe she’d like a nice rug better? I think the packhorse can handle it. See if you see one that has some of the same colors she has in her house.”
Benger sorts through them and finds one that seems like it would be nice to step out of bed onto in the winter when the floors are usually freezing. Having witnessed his mother dancing around in the winter to get her slippers on, he thinks that perhaps a rug is something she’d appreciate.
“This one, I think,” he says finally.
Emlyn glances up and nods, “That’s a nice one.” Benger rolls up the rug and starts tying it up for its trip on the pack horse.
Glancing up again, Emlyn grins, “Maybe don’t tell her it’s made of silk and likely worth more than her house right away. Once she’s used it for a while and likes it, then you can tell her.”
Eyes wide, Benger tightens up the ropes a bit more.
Emlyn finds some packs that contain coins and rolls her eyes and goes to dump the coins out. Grimacing at the waste of it, Emlyn quickly tears some strips of silk off the ends of some of the bolts of finely woven silk and makes different colored bundles to give to each of the captives. A few more strips and she’s got the new packs loaded with the items she’s chosen for herself. Many are gaudy and not anything she’d ever wear, but the gems in them are worth more than the gold and platinum that they’re set into.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Shoving the pile of coins into the bottom of one of the chests, she explains, “There’s enough here to buy a Duchy, Benger. Gods alone know how long these cutthroats have been operating. It’s not enough to rob people, but then sell them into slavery to get even more gold… That makes all of it even worse.”
Benger is carefully wrapping the rug in a tarp that was covering some crates. Out of curiosity, Emlyn cracks one open to see what’s in it, and it’s full of censers and candelabras packed carefully in straw. “Didn’t I hear something about a shipment of temple goods that went missing? I bet if you check, you’ll find that these have Morrighu’s symbols on them.”
Lastly, she begins sorting through the clothing and picking out items for each of the captives. She goes out with the first few bundles to find Jathon’s mother stirring a big cauldron and preparing to make some soup. She hands out the bundles and directs them to bathe and get rid of their soiled clothing. Returning to the crack, she squeezes in, picks up more bundles of clothing, and wriggles back out.
A few more join the line waiting for a bath. A few more trips, and everyone is waiting for a bath. Once outside and with the new packages stowed, Benger looks at her over the rump of the pack horse.
“How exactly do you know this boy, Jathon?” Benger frowns.
“He’s one of the scullery boys in the dining hall,” Emlyn replies. “How is it that you eat there every day, and you do not know him?”
Chastened, Benger coughs, “Why were you so harsh with the bandits?”
“Come,” she grimaces, “and I’ll show you. Best you see it before you eat.”
Leading him some distance into the forest, he begins to catch the scent of rot and decomposition. Nearly gagging from the stench, they step into a clearing that is nothing more than a hill of decomposing corpses in various states of decay. Moss-covered skeletons appear to form the base layer, with upper layers that seem to be of more recent origin; many still retain remnants of clothing and even shoes. Not even rating a shallow grave from the bandits, they dumped the bodies in the clearing and kept dumping them here.
“Bethina says that anyone who was sick got carted off and never reappeared,” Emlyn explains, “I think this is where they ended up. We’ll need to try to resurrect whoever we can and have funeral rites for all the rest of them so that the whole forest doesn’t become filled with angry wandering spirits.”
Moving to get upwind of the smell, Benger sighs heavily, “Now I understand your anger.” Waving a hand at the hill of corpses, he growls, “This makes me angry.”
Nodding in understanding, she pats his shoulder, “The whole of it together is even worse—so much suffering. So many lives ended abruptly. So many others were disrupted by being sold into slavery. They were planning to take Jathon and his whole family, you know. And for what? More coins to sit moldering in that cavern.”
Benger shakes his head slowly, “Now I see why you said it was best to do this before eating. Let’s go back.”
When they return, they find more members of their Temple, drawn from locations outside Harito, already at work. Clerics are moving among the former captives, healing minor wounds and administering potions to counter the effects of their ill-treatment. Some monks are searching the caves for more hidden caverns, and Emlyn gives one of the monks the ring of keys that they took from the bandit leader, with instructions to see if they can find what all the keys fit.
One of the clerics makes for the bandit leader, and Emlyn waves him off.
“He’s the one who’s been in charge here. He’s got some questions to answer,” Emlyn says sharply, “If he wants to be healed, he’ll be answering them.”
When the cleric starts to protest, Benger waves a hand in the direction they just returned from, “Before you start lecturing her on the treatment of our captives, go take a walk out in the forest for aways and then follow your nose. When you come back from that, then we’ll listen to what you have to say about how she’s dealing with him.”
Puzzled, somewhat offended, and slightly angry, the cleric follows Benger’s order.
Emlyn crouches down and flashes the bandit leader a feral grin, “So let’s have a chat, shall we?”
“The others are still in the forest, and they’ll be coming back,” he hisses, “I’ll not be answering any of your questions.”
“They’re not coming back,” Emlyn counters smoothly. “You see,” she flashes another feral grin, “Once I found your bone pile and dealt with your archer, I went hunting. Your archer was good, I’ll give him that, but I’m better. I might have missed one or two, but no more than that. Certainly not enough to save your sorry hide. In any event, they’re not here now, and I am. I’m also not overly inclined to treat you too gently, either. I’ve found your cavern, you see. You can either prove your usefulness by answering my questions, or you can continue to be stubborn. I do hope you decide to be stubborn.”
He pales slightly at this, so Emlyn continues to press her point, “Every single one of those arrows was placed precisely not to hit anything vital, but to cause you a lot of pain and to make sure you stayed put. Would you like to know how many more I can place before I have to pull them out and start over? I admit that I’m a bit curious to know the answer to that question.” For emphasis, Emlyn grabs an arrow and twists it a bit.
Biting back a scream of pain, he collapses, panting and sweating, his bravado visibly evaporating. “Alright… you win.”
“That’s more like it,” Emlyn purrs. “Benger, go find some writing materials.”
Benger returns a little while later with a wax tablet and a stylus, “This was all I could find. Apparently, no one brought any ink.”
“It’ll have to do for now. Write small,” Emlyn advises. “Now,” she purrs to the bandit leader, “Let’s start with you. Who are you?”
“I was born Monases Du Privont,” he says slowly. Once Emlyn has extracted enough information from the bandit to fill the wax tablet, including names of people who were sold into slavery, she stops questioning him. She reaches over and pulls out an arrow, mumbles a prayer, and heals the wound.
“See what happens when you cooperate?” she says with a saccharine smile.
Just then, the cleric stumbles back into the compound, still dry heaving and retching. Unslinging her mace, she strides angrily toward the bandit leader.
Emlyn rises smoothly to meet her. “Easy, sister. If you bash his head in, we can’t get the names of the ones he sold into slavery.”
Emlyn murmurs to her for a few moments, and eyes downcast, the cleric puts her mace away. Emlyn suggests that she assemble some other clerics and see who, from the pile of corpses, can be resurrected. Nodding grimly, the girl moves off with purpose.
“You see,” Emlyn says brightly, turning back to Monases, “None of us really like you. I’m far from being the only one here who would like to end you. We’re willing to tolerate you as long as you continue to provide information. I suggest that you take this little interlude to have a nice, long think and come up with as many names as you can.”
“What if I can’t remember anything else?” he whines.
“If you decide that you don’t want to do that,” Emlyn shrugs, “I’m certain that your former captives might like to have a say or even a hand in your punishment.”
Eyes wide in fear, he croaks, “You wouldn’t… give me to them, would you?”
Barking a dark, bitter laugh, Emlyn shrugs, “In a heartbeat. At the slightest provocation.”
He cringes back into silence, so Emlyn adds, “If that’s something you don’t want to happen, then I suggest that you work very hard at trying to recall all the names of all the people you sold and who you sold them to.”
Wandering off away from Monases, Emlyn finds a flattish rock and flops down heavily.
Running a hand over her face, she looks up at Benger, “Gods, I’m tired.”
“You should be tired,” Benger shrugs, “I’m not sure what the Goddess meant about racing around the forest like a mad squirrel, but I’m guessing that if their archer was up in the trees, that you were as well.”
“I was,” Emlyn nods, “It wasn’t easy to keep pace with him, and I overshot him when I was chasing him and had to double back. That was when I found that heap. We fought a bit before I shoved him off his tree and stole his quiver because I was running out of arrows.”
She shows him the cat’s claws and how they work.
“So that’s how you were able to move around so quickly,” Benger nods, “The Goddess was right. It’s impressive, but not very restful.”
Mumbling a prayer, he lays a hand on her shoulder, and a blue nimbus rolls across her. “I can’t make you less tired,” he shrugs, “but I can heal you a bit more. Let’s get some food in you, and then you can rest. You’ve had quite a day.”
“It was necessary,” Emlyn shrugs, “I wasn’t about to let them overpower us. For a crew with a tree archer, they spent remarkably little time looking up. That’s how I was able to pick so many of them off, despite being rather noisy because I was moving so quickly.”
Should Emlyn have left more of the bandits alive? Let me know in the comments.