- Four Years Later -

- Mountain Forests Outside Drorin -

The string taut, the tension begging her skin to break and bleed, Leona exhaled slowly and released her hold. The arrow sang as it left its place beside her cheek and soared toward its target.

A second passed and she heard a familiar sound as the arrow pierced the flesh and sunk into her target’s neck, just behind its jaw.

The dire wolf howled, a mix of pain and anger as it turned in her direction, preparing to charge the bushes its attacker must surely be behind. Easily three and a half times the size of a normal wolf, it’s silhouette against the moonlight in the clearing made for an imposing sight.

So focused was the beast on the source of the assault that it missed the crunch of underbrush as Durnst executed his part of the plan and slammed his shield into the beast.

The blow lifted the dire wolf off its feet and tossed it few meters, where it landed heavily on its side, the snow doing nothing to break its fall to the ice-hardened forest floor.

As it started to rise, the flat broadside of Brash’s axe landed on its spine in a crushing blow that dropped the beast back to the ground.

It snarled, ready to turn on this new scarred and massive foe, when Rel dropped from the branch where he’d been waiting, landing with a foot on either side of the dire wolf’s shoulders and deftly pierced the back of the beast’s neck with his two rapiers.

One sank neatly through its spine, severing all connection between brain and body. The dire wolf collapsed to the ground, bleeding out, as the remaining snow from the branch above landed softly on Rel’s shoulders.

Rel stepped back to provide a clear view as Durnst and Leona approached.

“He’s in perfect condition”, Durnst said appraisingly. “All of you performed your tasks exactly as planned. A successful training exercise, to be certain. We’ll be able to harvest all the best bones and hide intact.”

“Too bad the dire meat is inedible,” Rel commented. “We’d eat like kings all the time.”

Durnst shrugged his shoulders, unable to argue. “Combined with the Dire Elk two nights past, at least we’ll turn a decent profit in Drorin tomorrow. Well done, everyone.”

-Drorin-

Colm’s vision swam. No, not my vision - me, he thought as he realized his body was swinging. His hands were tied above him, the rope draped over a hook between his wrists that kept him hanging from the ceiling.

He heard a familiar sickening, ripping sound below him and his brain reminded him the pain would swiftly follow.

The pain spread through his frayed nerves, but he was too exhausted to scream. His head drooped, and he saw a smile on the greasy face of his torturer, the man’s mouth only half-filled with teeth as he pulled the hooked blade from Colm’s side.

Before the squat, foul-smelling man could taunt him again about his predicament, he was shoved aside by the soldier who had visited weekly for as long as Colm could remember.

The solder’s visits were the only event by which Colm could mark the passage of time.

“You’ve been here what, four years? Your body is a shriveled husk of scars, boy. You’ll tell me where the royal family hid the prince the day we took you, or you’ll never leave this room. My man here has kept you alive this long, he’ll keep you alive for a long while yet. All I need is where he was that day, just that starting point, and this will all end.”

Colm tried to smile, but his lips and cheeks were so swollen from that morning’s beating that he was sure it was a futile gesture. What was more pain? It was all he knew. He wasn’t even entirely sure whom they were asking about anymore.

“Squat over a mirror, I think I saw him up your arse,” he finally found the energy to say.

The soldier fumed and brought his fist back for a punch. His anger distracted him such that he didn’t notice Colm had finally worked his hands free of the rope that kept him dangling a foot above the floor.

Colm dropped to the hard stone, his blood on the floor already sticky as he landed in it. He reached, weak but fast, across the soldier’s belt and pulled the man’s dirk from its sheath.

He shoved the blade into the man’s left thigh, then pulled it out and thrust it into the other leg before the older man could react. When the soldier fell to his knees, Colm pushed the blade into the man’s throat.

Colm rose and turned to the fat torturer as the soldier’s body fell to the floor, watched him back up with widened eyes, and smiled.