I awoke to somebody trying to pull me out of the cave, I was so weak that all I could do was help them get me out. A man looked down at me, with his red eyes and white hair with what looked like blond highlights, he spoke the same language that the little girl had.
I said, "Sorry I don't speak Gypsy." I remembered my mother telling me she was a powerful Gypsy witch and she had cast a powerful spell on my father to make him fall in love with her. Me and my brother and sister thought she was just funning us, I guess not.
Alak looked lost and told his daughters, "All humans speak common and I have been speaking it for 40 years yet he doesn't know any of it. Look at his clothes and his things, I have never seen any of this before." His daughters could tell from his eyes and body language that he was very excited about that, they on the other hand could careless.
The man was speaking another language to his children as he turned to me and pointed to himself and said, "Alak" he pointed to me, I might not be a genius but I'm no idiot. I said "Onree" I always used my French pronunciation even with the men in my platoon, which is why they always called me Casper just to fuck with me more. I stood slowly and looked at the strange people, I was shocked they were all much shorter than me and the men looked even smaller than the women. I looked back towards the cave to see if they had gotten the girl out, Alak pointed into the darkness I figured it was in the direction that those wagons had been.
My hands had been tied this whole time and tightly at that, they must have tied them while I was passed out. They must have used some kind of chemical to make the cave glow so they could see better my vision was limited to about 1 meter, 2 meters tops with this kind of light, I would not be able to see my hand in front of my face if I were to move away from it, how would I know where my feet were going down hill. I felt a push in my back, they wanted me to walk down the hill, I knew it was there but I didn't know when it dropped so I dug in as the next push came, followed by a hard crack I craned my neck to see one of these girls hitting me and trying to push, guess she hasn't figured out about leverage and expects me to go because she hit, I smiled knowing she couldn't move me not matter how hard she tried. One of the smaller boys came over and kicked the back of my leg knocking me to my knee, he knew what I had done and grabbed the rope that was left from tying my hands together and gave a tug, I might have been weak but I knew I was still stronger than both of them, as I felt another crack along my back that stung like a mother fucker the bitch behind me knew how to use that stick. I yanked back hard and pulled the boy to the ground, I opened my hips and spun around sweeping the legs of the girl behind me as she hit the ground I smiled and saw the cane she had hit me with on the ground as well, the man with the blond highlights came up to me, said something to both of them and looked at me then pointed down to the wagons, I ran my hands in front of me and pointed in the same direction, I saw my flashlight still on my webbing and reached for it.
A knife came to my throat and I stopped, the blond man looked at me, I waved my hands like before pointed in the direction of my flashlight and made the hand motion I wanted to shake my head no but the knife would have cut me not deeply but I really didn't want to get cut if I could help it, I brought my hands to the flashlight and felt the knife dig into my neck. I understood that one wrong move and they will slit my throat. I turned it on and watched as 'Blondie' I had forgotten his name, jumped back and saw small swords like the Romans used pointed at me, I put my hands in the light to show that it wasn't dangerous, 'Blondie' put his hands into the light and stood next to it.
Alak said his voice thick with wonder, "It gives off no magic, I think this must be a new part of what the humans call science."
Belarbreena said in a condescending tone, "Alak, everybody will be able to see us with that thing, why don't we bring darkness, it is for our safety?"
Alak replied, "If we do that we will never get him down this hill and back home or did you enjoy being knocked to the ground by him? I want to know how that does that don't you, as well as many other things." Belarbreena couldn't hide that she did find this human fascinating with his massive shoulders and the fact that he towered over all of them, plus she knew her sisters would take great pleasure in beating him for her it would provide and opportunity to embarrass them which was always a very good thing in her opinion.
I felt the slack taken out of my rope and one of the boys was trying to pull me up but my body was in the wrong position for that, so I pulled hard and set my hands on the ground and got to my feet and started walking towards the wagons. I stopped at the wagon and saw another of these children sitting on the wagon looking down at my patient, she was undoing the bandages and she looked at the hole, I had stitched up when she was under the morphine. I guess she didn't like my work as she looked at my patient's shoulder with disdain.
'She must be the medic.' I thought, to be so unhappy because somebody was still alive that meant more work for them and even exposed them to being shot at which of course they weren't in favor of.
Henri couldn't have been more wrong, Shyntaunlin was pissed for several reasons; first she had been dragged out to get her worthless sister, second her sister had been wounded by lowly Deep Dwarves, third this thing had saved her and for what reason? finally that damn light spell was annoying the hell out of her that and he was male and not worth the time, three times as much because he was human and this close to their home.
Alak who seemed reasonable enough walked up to him and mimed, pointing to his eyes and making a painful face then pointing to the flashlight. I got what he wanted as I reached up and fumbled with the light but having my hands tied made this very uncomfortable, I looked at Alak and held out my wrists, said something to them and 4 stood around me, pointing short swords at me while another glared at me but did as he was told. When my hands were free I pulled the flashlight out and switched it to red and set it on low, they all looked at me in amazement, I mimed my helmet and it was brought to me, I grabbed it and hooked the flashlight to my helmet and put my helmet on, I held my hands together like they were tied and showed how easy it would be for me to reach it. Alak looked impressed that the light could change colors and found the low red light could not be seen and further than 100 meters if you have very good eyesight, plus it didn't hurt their eyes.
I looked up and saw the medic girl pouring something down the throat of my patient. I watched in horror as she started to convulse she was having a seizure, as I saw her back arch and her arms and legs begin to flail, the medic jumped out of the wagon and they all stepped away from the wagon. I had to do something she was opening up her stitches, I jumped up and having nothing to put in her mouth but my fingers I did and got bit repeatedly for it, she convulsed for about 5 minutes and stopped. I looked around for the bottle she had used, I uncorked it and smelled it, it didn't smell toxic so I took a small sip and felt a tingling in my fingers as I looked down I saw the bleeding stop, I sipped some more and watched my fingers to heal up. I couldn't figure out how this concoction did what it had just done let alone caused my patient to have a seizure.
I saw the rest of the rescue party climb onto the other wagons I had two people on each side of me one had a knife on my right side the other had a knife at my left, I watched as my patient slept. I would have loved to get my bearings but I would need the high white setting on my flashlight and any light seemed to hurt their eyes. They must have been down here a long time to be so sensitive to light, how long would that take a generation or five? Other than Alak they all seemed to be younger that myself, with those knife shaped ears, everything I saw led me to think they had evolved for this environment, those ears could help catch sound, sort of like a cats ears the difference well one of many is that cats could move them independently to focus on a sound. They didn't retie my hands as we rode on I guess they weren't too concerned about me getting away or maybe they figured if my patient had another seizure I could treat her, the wagons stopped and my hands were tied as I was led to the camp sight.