The Trials of the Minotaur

Part Three: The Wondrous Beast (Chapter Six)

Having dispatched with the rest of the merchant's men and collected not only the spoils of their raid on the caravan but the gold that had been intended to pay for it, the bandits set off toward Huiam to ransom the Doctor and the Minotaur. Rather than travel the roads that the caravan had been on, they stayed in the rocky desert highlands, where they knew the terrain well and could disappear at a moment if need be. As they traveled they encountered other bands of confederates who joined them, for there were plenty of spoils to be shared and neither the beast nor the armies of Huiam were to be trifled with.

The bandits saw that the Doctor and the beast were well cared for, not wanting to risk losing their fortune to the vagaries of travel. They were kept chained together and mealtimes developed into an elaborate ritual where one bandit would bring their food while two others trained arrows upon the beast. Even as they journeyed, the bandits on horseback leading their two prisoners walking and stumbling behind, two men kept arrows notched in their bows, ready to loose at the first sign of trouble from the Minotaur.

“A pity you had to demonstrate your faculties,” the Doctor remarked during one of the breaks the chieftain had called. “We might have used that to our advantage if they had remained unsuspecting.”

“I thought your tongue was going to loose our bonds,” the Minotaur said to him, laughter in his voice. While their forced march had been hard on the Doctor, the Minotaur seemed only to gain in strength as the days went on. His steps grew only more assured the longer he walked, his senses and his intuition now so attuned to his blindness that he felt certain he could identify where all the bandits and their horses were at any given moment.

“My good friend,” the Doctor said, “do not let our present bleak circumstances confuse your senses. Here in this desert we are at their mercy, there can be no doubt, for this is their world. But once we reach Huiam, the advantage turns in our favor. Those are my people and I am known there. Now we must be patient and marshal our strength.”

They walked for so many days the Minotaur lost count, passing from the desert to a verdant highland, a place of forests and afternoon rains. According to the Doctor they were nearing Huiam, this being one of the kingdoms that paid tribute to the empire. Having left their homeland, the bandits grew ever more wary, forming a sort of phalanx on horseback around their prized possessions as they traveled, and every approaching person was treated with suspicion. They took a circuitous route, staying as far from populated areas as they could, the better to escape notice and avoid having the Minotaur becoming known.

Their caution proved to be for naught, for a local baron caught wind of their passage and knew that such a caravan of well-armed foreigners must be protecting some fabulous treasure, and he sought to take it for himself. Calling on his retainers, he gathered a force of men and confronted the bandits, demanding that they pay an exorbitant custom for passing through his land. This delighted the Doctor, for he felt certain that they would fall into the hands of the baron, whom he could easily influence. As he told the Minotaur, all inhabitants of these tributary lands were desperate above all to be seen as civilized and cultured as an Huiamite.

Though the tax imposed was costly, the bandits were able to pay it with ease from the gold and the spoils they had taken from the merchant, the chieftain justifying doing so by saying they would more than make their fortune back in the selling of the beast. The baron was so taken aback by the bandits’ ability to meet his demands that he assumed they must be representatives of a barbarian kingdom and dared not press them for more, lest he find himself embroiled in a conflict he could not hope to win. And so they passed from the highlands to the mountains that marked the border with Huiam. There they halted, much to the Doctor's frustration, sending two representatives into the empire to find an administrator or lord who would speak for the Empress and meet their demands.