Chapter 2 - Part VII

After what had seemed an eternity, the party came to the end of their journey at a wooden facade. The more slender set of arms of the two midnight assailants raised her hand to deliver a knock. Three times she repeated herself and with each knock, Onion felt her ears straining more than with the previous as a muted echo reverberated through the tunnel.

In response, Onion could distinguish four return knocks which also diminished with each manifestation. Understanding for the first time that the two assailants were not simply dumb, Onion noted the silky female voice responded, "Seven times."

This was apparently the correct answer, as the wooden boards were slid aside with great effort. Both Onion and Cedric were forced to turn their gaze away as blinding light flooded the tunnel, but the owners of the feminine voice and the muscular hands remained unfazed. The two had been wearing blindfolds and it was unclear if they even had use of their eyes. Unsympathetic to the raw burn of their eyes, the two silent kidnappers herded the dazed former prisoners through the hole in the wall and into a small inn room.

"Cedric!", exclaimed the man who had helped move aside the wooden facade. He grinned from ear to ear, beaming with excitement. "You made it! I told you that you would do just fine." the man bantered in the Eirdren tongue while smothering the diminutive Archne chef in a warm embrace. Cedric, for his part, wore a look of surprise on his face, but in the glow of the nearby fire, looked significantly less pale than he had been recently.

"And you, my dear" the shaggy blond warrior switched into the Nürish, "I'm glad to see Anita and Davin did not have to bring you back unconscious. I suspect they would have had a difficult time taking you out anyway."

Onion stared before recognizing the man for who he was. The Rel priest was dressed a little less ridiculously now than during his dungeon incarnations but the trimmed beard sideburns that extended to his jawline, his large strong hands and mop of golden hair were unmistakable. Now, he wore a leather jerkin and a solid brestplate fastened on with leather straps. At his waist he maintained an impressive longsword with intricate but unfamiliar designs printed on the hilt. His left forearm was a hardened leather brace with a metal plate fastened to the outer half around his arm. A hard leather guard rested on the topside of his hand and at his feet were standard issue leather boots.

Onion noticed that his fingers bore the highly faded blue tattoo of Rel. In a few days, the ink would be gone in its entirety.

She also beheld her captors in their entirety for the first time. Anita and Davin were creatures unlike any she had ever seen. They appeared to be kin, both with long, straight hair, darker and blacker than that of any Nü Onion had ever met. In contrast to their raven hair, their taut, sinewy skin that stretched over lean, muscular frames, was as pale as Cedrics. Their uniforms, however, revealed very little of the skin.