NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 4: The Hunt)

CHAPTER EIGHT: GAEL

The sound of the key turning in that lock is starting to become a trigger for me, I swear to Minerva. The moment I hear the slightly sticky, scratchy ratcheting sound, followed by a shunting creak as the door sticks in the frame before finally popping loose, every inch of me goes cold, a deep chill riding up my spine. If my mouth wasn't already painfully dry it would go that way in an instant, and as it is I'm immediately working on sitting up the best I can with these ropes, huddling as tight into the corner as I can get with so little mobility. Gods ... I hate being so encumbered, it's as humiliating as it is harrowing.

Still, at least whoever's coming through doesn't seem to be in a particular rush, which is enough to give me a chance to right prepare myself. Next to me, da starts to stir too, a winded snort signalling his awakening as the sounds must shake him from what hard-won rest he's managed to claw for himself, and I find myself starting to hate our captors a little more for it. He's already in such a bad way.

Finally the door pops open and a more battered, ratty older human man with a particularly unbecoming thin, patchy beard and a badly scarred left eye barely manages to catch himself as he stumbles through with it. He rights himself with an angry grunt, rolling his wide, heavily muscled shoulders, and works on dragging the key from the lock again after swinging the door the rest of the way open to make room for more.

The fact that I was expecting Vandryss makes seeing the dragonhalf woman step through instead a genuine relief. I start to relax almost immediately as I realise how quickly I'd just tensed up, slumping a little more into the wall I'm already leaning against, and I let a relieved breath out through my nose. Not that she is, subjectively, really any better than our current number one enemy, but ... I don't know, given my previous experience with her, there just seemed to be something more ... sympathetic about her, perhaps? I can't really be sure, but maybe it gives me a little hope.

She's very striking, I have to admit. She's very tall, I mean still nowhere near as tall as Yeslee but I don't doubt she'd make Shay look small, and while she seems built more for speed and agility it's clear enough she's got some great strength in her, and not just due to her blood. There's definitely something much akin to Kelsa about her, a powerful, disciplined warrior of profound experience but also a particularly cool, pragmatic cynicism too, but the more I see of her the clearer it is to me that she comes from a very different background. It's not just her far more expensive clothing and gear, but the way she speaks, her bearing. This one clearly comes from money. Which makes me wonder what in the world is she doing in this profession?

She seems somewhat softer than when I saw her last, which is interesting, but maybe it's simply the fact that she's clearly been at rest since last time she came in here, when Vandryss came back to question my father after ... what she did to me. She brought the rogue wizard too, Tavarrat, I suspect in case da decided to withhold after all, but he was pretty comprehensively broken after seeing me tortured and humiliated by that heinous bitch, so there was no need. Mostly the dragonhalf stood by and observed, but she asked odd questions here and there, mostly about the Order's involvement in all this, I noticed, and the answers seemed to trouble her deeply. Mostly, though I got the impression she was mostly here to keep an eye on Vandryss, make sure she didn't go too far with either of us. Which was interesting.

She's shed her armour now, instead simply wearing a pair of well-fitted, rich buckskin britches with very tall boots, a costly-looking linen shirt with really puffy sleeves, and a soft suede-and-silk waistcoat buttoned high to her neck. Her dark hair is, comparatively, similarly relaxed, still tied back but this time in a much looser braid that falls over her shoulder, while several loose locks frame her face, more than one slipping over her eyes. It's a particularly fetching style that softens her fierce look, and definitely heightens her harsh beauty.