Diana suspected that it would probably be the longest night of her life as well, not to mention the last.

     The four of them had been placed, kneeling, in a row in front of a buffalo hide tent by their captors, waiting for the leader of the Shadowpatrol to emerge and inspect them. They all had their hands tied, and Dennis was bleeding from a wound he’d received when the Shadowsoldiers had taken them. He was the only one who’d been able to grab a weapon and fight back. The others had been overpowered and tied up before they’d known what was going on.

     Shaun and Dennis had had their armour stripped from them and knelt in their cotton underwear, heavily padded to stop their breastplate and chain mail chafing their skin. Naomi’s tiger skin lay discarded a few yards away, having been torn from her by the giggling Shadowsoldiers. Diana was more fortunate in that she'd only been stripped to the waist and she was trying to tell herself how fortunate she was that part of her modesty was still intact, if only temporarily.

     She glared back defiantly, determined not to allow her partial nudity to put her at a psychological disadvantage as the Shadowsoldiers stared greedily, their eyes crawling over every line and curve of her body. She forced herself to feel outraged by this violation of her privacy, and seized hold of the anger the way a shipwreck victim grabs hold of a piece of wreckage. Anger was a lot better than fear.

     Naomi was also visibly afraid, but the cleric thought that the other woman was radiating a kind of desperate hope, something that gave her hope as well. The black woman was clearly displaying herself to the Shadowsoldiers, as if offering herself to them. She's hoping to get herself alone with one of them, the cleric thought. She thinks she'll be able to turn the tables on him and escape. And if she does, will she try to free the rest of us? How can she, against so many enemies? Better if she just saves herself. Best if she just runs off into the forest. That way, at least one of us will survive.

     Diana pressed up against Naomi, drawing comfort from the physical contact with the black girl’s body, white shoulder against black arm, but she had another reason for wanting to get as close as possible. “Naomi!” she hissed, trying to keep her mouth as still as possible. “Can you turn into a cat?” She peered around with her eyes while keeping her head still, trying to see if any of the Shadowsoldiers had heard her.

     “Not while I’m tied up,” whispered back the black girl. “Humans are flexible enough to have their arms pulled behind their backs, but cats aren’t. If I try to turn into a cat now, I’ll tear my arms out of their sockets. Maybe I can make them untie me, though.”

     “How?” asked the cleric.

     Naomi smiled. “My body is my weapon,” she said. “And not just when I’m a cat.”

     She hushed up quickly as the tent flap opened and the Shadowwizard emerged. He was young, as young as Thomas by the look of him, but that was the only point of similarity between the two wizards. Whereas Thomas was on the skinny side and rarely without a smile on his face, the man who stood in front of them now had a powerful, athletic body and a sneer of contemptuous superiority as he looked his captives over. It was a look like that would have earned him a punch in the mouth from Shaun if it had been on the face of any ordinary thug he’d happened to meet, but this was a wizard who had them totally at his mercy and Diana saw her brother glancing sideways at her in an agony of desperate fear.

     “Leave her alone!” he cried in helpless fury, “or I’ll...”

     The Shadowwizard struck him hard across the mouth, knocking him to the ground. “I’ll do whatever I want to whoever I want, whenever I want,” he snarled, standing over the fallen soldier. “I demand obedience and respect. Answer me back and you’ll regret it.” He kicked him hard, and there was an audible snap as one of Shaun's ribs broke. A Shadowsoldier came forward to pull him back to his feet.

     The wizard went back into the tent for a moment and came out with the casket containing the Scrolls of Skava. Diana was amused and encouraged to see little scratches where he'd tried and failed to force it open, telling the soldier that he lacked the spell Thomas had used to open it. Could it be that Thomas was his superior in wizardry? It was possible! After all, all the good wizards would be in the war, besieging the various Beltharan and Fu Nangian fortresses. Only the most junior would be spared to go on missions like this. And Thomas was still out there, free! There was hope! A lot of it!

     “What is this?” demanded the wizard, showing it to them. They remained silent, and the wizard lashed out furiously, punching Shaun in the face and smashing his nose to a bloody pulp. “When I ask a question, I expect to be answered!” he roared. “Now what is it?”

     “We don’t know,” replied Diana before he could strike again. “We found it in an old castle in the mountains. We thought it might be valuable so we took it.”

     The wizard glared at her. “Was I talking to you?” he demanded. “Was I?” The cleric dropped her eyes meekly.

     “All right,” said the wizard, accepting her gesture of subservience. “Now I want you to tell me who you are, and what Beltharan soldiers and a cleric of Caroli are doing way out here in the middle of nowhere.”

     He questioned them at length, and they replied meekly, their eyes lowered to his feet. Their attitude of submission pleased him, making them believe the lies they were telling him, but it also aroused his passions as he kept looking at the two beautiful women, his for the taking whenever he wanted them. Shaun talked a lot, his voice slurred as his face puffed up around his broken nose. Diana knew he was trying to attract the wizard’s attention away from her, even if it earned him another beating. The curse of the Runeblade, and the images of used, broken, unclothed women that it had left in his head, must be torturing him right now, she thought. She wished she had the power to heal his damaged soul, but that kind of power was only possessed by the oldest, most devout clerics. All she could do for him now was try to stay strong, no matter what they did to her. If she showed him that she could take it, maybe he'd be able to take it as well.

     They couldn’t conceal the fact that they were a Beltharan wolf pack, since Shaun and Dennis had been in Beltharan uniform and there was no other plausible explanation for serving Beltharan soldiers to be travelling in the company of a cleric of Caroli, a trog and a nome (They’d found Arroc and Teasel’s belongings in the camp and deduced the nature of the people they belonged to). They also knew that there’d been another human in the camp, but they didn’t know he was a wizard and the teamsters were careful not to say anything to give the fact away.

     They were also able to conceal the true reason for their presence in the Red Forest. They told him they were on their way to the Vale of Thorns to report to the garrison there, and that their mission was to have been to escort a very important person, whose identity they didn’t know, through dangerous country to a meeting with various other unknown people in a place they also didn’t know about yet. It was a tale simple enough to be plausible, but they held their breaths anxiously as they waited to see if the wizard believed it. You didn’t get to be a wizard by being stupid, not even a Shadowwizard.

     “I think you're lying,” said the wizard at last, his cruel eyes narrowing as he scrutinised them carefully. “I think your real mission was to take this casket to the Vale of Thorns garrison, but it doesn’t matter. The casket, and whatever it contains, is ours now. I accept that you don’t know what it contains, though. You are nothing more than couriers, and it wasn't necessary for you to know. Therefore you are no longer of any use to me.”

     He looked at the two women again, obviously tempted, but the casket was a far greater temptation. Magically strengthened caskets inevitably contained something very important, and this casket could well contain something what would increase his power immensely. He had to get it open! He’d keep trying all night if he had to. He gestured to the eagerly waiting human Shadowsoldiers, therefore. “You may have the women,” he said, “but make sure they’re dead before dawn.”

     Shaun cried out in distress, but was helpless to do anything as Diana and Naomi were carried away. “Let her go you bastards!” he cried as a huge sholog grabbed him and stopped him from chasing after them. “Let her go!” The only reply he got was their callous laughter and the sickening sound of tearing cloth.

     “What about these two?” asked the sholog holding Dennis, his claws digging deep into the soldier’s arms and drawing blood.

     “They’re no use to me,” replied the wizard, turning to enter his tent. “Cut their throats.”

☆☆☆

     The two soldiers were thrown to the ground and rolled onto their backs. Shologs sat astride each of them and raised their daggers, ready to bring them slashing down. A heavy, clawed hand shoved Shaun’s head back, grinding his hair into the dark, loamy soil, but even as his fate seemed sealed Shaun could think only of his sister and the ordeal she was about to undergo. He cried out in dismay and terrible torment, and the shologs laughed, thinking he was afraid for his own life.

     At the very last moment, though, another sholog, much larger and more powerful than any of the others, struck the sholog on Shaun’s chest a mighty blow, throwing him backwards to land sprawling on the ground. “Ya said we could ‘ave ‘em!” he roared at the wizard, baring his fangs. “Ya said we could ‘ave some fun with ‘em! Ya promised!”

     The sholog on Dennis’s chest paused uncertainly, knife pressed against the soldier’s throat, breaking the skin and drawing blood. The wizard turned, his face colouring with anger and his fingers moving in a way Shaun recognised. He was preparing to cast a spell. “You’ll do as you’re told or face the consequences!”

     The sholog wasn’t so easily cowed, though. “Ya promised,” he insisted, his bestial, doglike eyes narrowing dangerously. “Ya said we could ‘ave ‘em.”

     “You dare answer me back?” replied the wizard, seeming more surprised now than angry. “I demand respect, Shograz! Show me respect or I’ll destroy you, I swear in the name of the Shadowlord!”

     He keeps going on about respect, Shaun noted. Why is that? All the shologs were now facing up to the wizard, though, and if they all attacked together Shaun knew that even a much more powerful wizard than this one would be hard pressed to defend himself. This one wasn’t that powerful, and was now beginning to look a little afraid. The shologs saw it as well and moved forward menacingly.

     “All right,” the wizard said at last. “Do what you like with them, but make sure they’re dead before morning.” He then ducked hurriedly back into his tent and the shologs chuckled in triumph, pleased to have established who was really in charge here.

     The two soldiers were then picked up, untied and had the rest of their clothes stripped from them, suffering more cuts and scratches in the process. Then they were tied to a pair of wooden frames, their arms and legs spread out like rats on a vertical dissecting table, and all thought of Diana’s torment were driven from Shaun’s mind as he saw the shologs advancing on him with their glittering sharp, metal instruments...