In the cage, Mekior watched Jeria walk away, leaving the frozen guards behind, and turned to Gyv. "We must try to escape tonight, tomorrow our lives will be worthless." He looked over the cage and nodded. "Yes, we will escape."

Gyv looked at him, leaning forward. "How? What, you going to make the guards open the cage and let us out?"

"Actually, yes, that's exactly what we are going to do. You've freed slaves, how much do you know of the command tongue?" Mekior looked at her, contemplating what to say next. "You do know about the command tongue or have you not learned of it?"

"I've heard of it. Rumours only though, never hard facts, it appears to be a secret known only to a few. Rumour says that there is a language that is known to only a few, the slave lords, the commanders of armies and the like. A language which the weaker fiends cannot resist, their obedience guaranteed to those that know it, and control them by it." She looked at him. "Rumour also says it is conditioned into all slaves that they cannot resist it, are forced into obedience by key words, their wills sapped by the millennia of slavery." She paused weighing her next words, "Rumour also that it has never been taught to a human. So, Mekior, how much of the rumours are right?"

"All of it, except the last, of course. After nightfall, we will leave. Give Jeria time to get away to head towards the city. We will head off west, leaving a hard to find trail, but one that they will find. We'll make it enough of a trail for three people." He looked at her, "Jeria can travel almost non-stop without us, and knows enough about the outdoors to survive on his own. Us, we're expendable. We just have to make sure that Jeria gets enough of a head start to get away."

"Why now? Why have you waited? Should we not have done this when we were first captured?"

"No." Mekior's voice was firm. "The first few days they watched Jeria too closely. If he had tried to run he would have been captured and brought back, our advantage lost. We have but the one chance to use the command tongue, and I will not have it wasted"

He turned away, not looking at her. Not speaking, leaving her with her questions. How had he learnt the language? What was the mark that Hiron had seen on him? She looked at him, and could see nothing untoward, his short, heavily muscled body unremarkable in any way beyond the ordinary, save, perhaps, in his nimbleness that seemed uncanny at times. She sat down, waiting for the night, for Mekior to speak in a tongue that there should be no way for him to know.

***

They moved through the forest. Gyv had watched and had even more questions raised as Mekior spoke the command togue with a fluency that shocked her. The strange syllables that twisted and sounded like they could not be spoken from a human throat. She led the way, carefully bending and blending their tracks, fixing them just enough that a competent tracker would pick up the trail, but making them hard enough to follow that none would suspect they were deliberately leading them onwards. She longed to call on the Goddess, use her magic to hide them, let them move like the wind, but she knew that Mekior spoke the truth. Jeria was the only one able mto make it all the way back to the city to warn the, if he was given the chance.

Gyv and Mekior heard the horns behind them, the baying of hounds, their very howls enough to freeze the blood. Gyv glanced backwards, her face frozen in fear, "They've got Dirian hunting hounds!"

Mekior looked at her, "What are Dirian hunting hounds?" He looked at her, saw the fear on her face, worried that perhaps they had made a mistake that Jeria was not safely on his way to the city.

"They're from the regional capital, Diria, where Hiron's fortress is, where he has his breeding dens, his slave encampments. The rumours of what happens in there are stomach turning: fiendish magic used to blend man and animal, devil and animal, or all three. The hunting hounds are one of his successful projects, a blend of fiend and dog, able to follow any trail regardless of the skill of those who make it, even able to ignore the magic that the Earth Mother can cast over a path to hide it from pursuers!" She continued walking, moving faster, not bothering with the useless task of trying to conceal their trail. "There are stories about what they do to their prey, of how they rip the pursued apart, piece by piece, not just their bodies but their very souls."

The two started running, Gyv calling on the Earth Mother to speed their passage, send them fleeing from their pursuers. A thought struck her, and she asked a question, breathlessly. "The command language, will it work on the hunting dogs?"

Beside her, neither breathless nor flagging, Mekior answered without breaking stride, "No. It is specific to each creature, each race. I have no idea what commands would be effective on them. I could think I was ordering them to stop only to discover that I had ordered them to attack!" He carried on running, heading deeper into the forest, looking for an area they could use for an ambush.

Gyv, running at his side, turned abruptly, heading between two giant trees that stood out from the others. "This way, the trees mark the route through to a supply cache. I've led freedom runs into this area. The cache should have weapons and food."

Mekior followed her, watching as she headed between the trees and stopped a few paces beyond. She knelt down, pulling up a rock, exposing a hole beneath a massive root. From beneath it she pulled out a treasure trove of armaments, enough to arm her normal squad of twenty.

"See anything you like?" She appropriated one of the bows, a quiver full of arrows and a vicious looking sword, its edge serrated and barbed. Mekior looked over the selection, shaking his head at the weapons.

"The House of Souls doesn't know about cold iron?" He picked over the weapons. "You want to hurt one of the lesser fiends, cold iron will do it for you. Unfortunately, for the greater fiends you need something more powerful. Either way I can hurt them, all Fiend Hunters can imbue their weapons with magic to cut the fiends, but you can't. Concentrate on the hounds, only the most powerful of the fiend-tainted share the fiend's immunities. I'll take care of the handlers." He bent over, taking a short stabbing sword, pairing it with a longer duelling sword. He tested their balance and smiled.

Gyv looked at him, speaking bitterly. "Oh yes, we know about cold iron, but the traders are too scared to bring it to us, and the cities hoard it. We keep trying to lure an alchemist away from a city, to come and turn our ordinary iron into cold iron, but none will come. Why should they, the cities fete and treat them like royalty!"

They prepared themselves and waited, listening as the baying came closer. The abrupt silence as the animals fell silent was far more chilling than the approaching howls had been. Gyv leaned over to Mekior. "They're close. The baying stops just before they attack."

Gyv's bow stayed steady, with string drawn back and an arrow ready to be loosed when the beasts finally showed themselves.

The hunting pack came into sight and gave Mekior his first sight of the beasts. They were large, easily the size of a man, their bodies sleek and muscular with large paws striking the ground, pulling them across the intervening space at a frightening pace. Their heads, which had the worst features of the devils combined with those of the dog, had sharp fangs along both sides, their ears, tiny nubs lost behind their over developed muscular jaws, were barely visible, the orbs of their glowing eyes coals of hate directed at the two. The first of Gyv's arrows streaked out, felling one of the beasts, piercing it deeply in its side, finding the beasts heart.

Two more went down but there were three more still in the pack to reach their prey who stood ready, swords in their hands. Behind the hounds came their handler, a fiend that Gyv, with a shock of recognition, knew from her last raid. It stood there, encouraging the hounds, its guttural language lost to her but not to the hounds. She struck out at the hounds, keeping two of them at bay, seeing only a blur of movement from her side where Mekior had been.

Mekior waited for the hound, spinning aside, sending the stabbing sword into its back, while the longer sword swept underneath, chopped off a leg. It fell, howling in agony, sending pitiful, puppy like yelps into the night. He immediately moved towards the fiend, watching its bone protrusions carefully, wary of their sharp edges.

Gyv hacked out with her sword, cursing the proximity of the beasts. She preferred the distance of her bow. The blade cut across the hound's skull, biting deeply as it pulled away muscle and skin as barbs grabbed hold and ripped out chunks of meat. The hound dropped, one eye hanging loose, blood pumping out onto the cold ground. The other hound had circled round, came in low, biting at her feet. She jumped, landing awkwardly, getting the sword up to block its teeth, feeling the pain as its bit deep into her arm.

Mekior still fought the devil. His twin swords flashed, bouncing off bone protrusions, unable to find a vulnerable target as the devil twisted and turned, using its natural armour and weapons skilfully. The dance had to end at some point, one of the dancers would have to make a mistake, and Mekior feared it could well be himself. The fiend turned, sending its tail round in an attempt to impale Mekior. But, he wasn't there anymore, he had followed it as it turned, punching forward with both swords, sacrificing defence for offence, both swords piercing fiendish flesh even as he let one of the bone spikes pierce his arm.

He left the fiend, his arm wounded and bleeding. Yet, somehow, his strength was still there and he was able to ignore the wound. He sent his sword into the juncture between head and spine of the beast that savaged Gyv, killing the beast that had left her arm, and part of her shoulder mashed and bloodied.

Mekior dropped down next to Gyv and saw she was unconscious. He looked at his bleeding arm, held it so that the blood dropped over her wounds and smiled as they knitted closed. He picked her up and headed west, leading pursuers ever further from the trial that Jeria would be following.