We come up with a plan. There is a former town here, and from the size of the group that is burning and torturing the elves, about sixty or seventy, I imagine they’ve been here for a while. Probably one of the back country reclusive groups that turtled when the Change hit. Probably also killed all of the mages and monsters that have come into their area, which to them would include elves, dwarves, and anything else that they don’t consider human.

Which would also include us if we get caught.

From Alyssa’s description, the group probably had some Amish in the area, as the majority are dressed in a similar fashion. She could tell who the group’s enforcers were because they had actual guns, while the rest of the group had pitchforks, and other things.

Bigots with guns, just what we need. I’m so thrilled to be taking care of this right now.

The remaining fourteen elves are all being kept in three cages, separating them. The cages are made from what looks like old car parts and barbed wire fencing, giving a once good looking church an apocalyptic feel. The elves have three elderly elves in one cage, which is fairly impressive, what looks like a small family of four in another cage, and the other seven, three males and four females, in the last.

According to Alyssa, there are three stakes set up behind the church that are the source of the smoke. The elves that were on them are already gone.

That is what really sets me off, and I fully consider going full out to wipe this group of evil bigots of the face of the world. That is, until I look at my group. Six of us right now, one of that in training. I can’t risk them like that.

So the only option I can think of is for us to run.

*****

We get our plan set. Wait for dark, take out the guards, and open the cages, getting the elves out. Start with the elders, because they’ll be the most help. Elder elves are normally impressive spell casters, as an elf only starts to look old once they’re something like eight hundred years old.

Once all of them are out, our plan is to go through the night, cross country to Wheatfield. Wheatfield has an adventurer’s guild house that we can stay at, and house the elves there until we can figure out more.

And anyone that gets in our way? We deal with them, no mercy. When I announced that, all I got in response was a fierce look of approval from everyone.

*****

Night finally falls. The area behind the church grounds is decently wooded, and we’re able to get fairly close without anyone seeing us.

The cages are still being guarded, three men with pitchforks patrolling the area around the cages, and one with a gun at what appears to be a makeshift guard post. They aren’t being truly watchful, so I decide to send Oro and Argento to distract the three guys while the rest of us sneak up towards the one with the gun.

That sort of works. Oro and Argento start barking over on the other side of the building, being our distraction. But instead of getting the three with pitchforks, they get all four of the guards walking towards the dogs.

It works for us, as Alyssa stalks up toward the men with John and Erin close behind. Jessie and I approach the cages, signaling for the elves to be quiet as we start using a bone that I prepped for a situation exactly like this one.

Granted, I thought it would be me needing it to get myself out of a cage, but it works.

The spell on the bone is an old favorite, Acid Blood. I pull out one of my knives and cut my palm open to bleed on the lock of the cage. I hand the knuckle bone to Jessie and whisper, “Wait till I’m at the next cage, then activate the spell. It’ll melt the lock and then you can get these guys out.”

The three old elves are looking at me with slight apprehension. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a necromancer using his magic to help others before. Always good to break standard thoughts on controversial matters. But then I look at their wrists, and ankles. The scum that kept them in here obviously cared about basic decency, as they still have basic clothes. But I don’t know where these guys came from or how they got here. Biggest reason for that is the scarred flesh from the iron cuffs chaffing around both wrists and ankles.

I thought I was pissed before, but I’m starting to see red.

I move to the next cage, and prep the lock and the spell, focusing on getting them out rather than the other option. I tell myself that it’s more important to get the people that are still alive out, rather than going on a rampage through this shithole of a town.

As I finish up on the last one, I step outside of the range of the spells, and signal Jessie to trigger the spell. It quickly burns through, and I hear the pops as the locks fall to the ground. The elders come over to me after they’ve been freed, bowing to me respectfully.

“Thank you,” one whispers, “You have given us back our lives. How can we help you?”

I smile then, and some of the younger elves flinch.

“Help me, help you. Do you want revenge?”

The worrying part is, after I say that last word, all the elves are grinning back to me.

*****

Once the elders are outside of the cages, it’s a matter of minutes before they have enough energy to heal themselves, and the other elves. The elves practice a weird type of magic that they call “Life” Magic. I call it necromancy while a person is still breathing. I sort of get the sense that we both creep the other out.

We rejoin the others, and I see how they took out the guards. Oro, and Argento both took out a guard each, with one having his arm completely separated from the rest of him, and the other having his throat ripped into a bloody mess.

The guard who had the gun took an arrow to the back of the head. Not exactly good for the arrow, but it clearly worked as he’s dead. The last guard had his head cut off, and I’m not sure if it was John or Erin .

However it looks like fresh parts to put into my bone bag to me.

While I harvest knuckles, and some of the longer bones for conversion to bone weapons, we all go over the plan and start to make a new one. With the elves wanting a little revenge too, we make our decision.

Then we get our first surprise. Centaurs. Our first clue that they were here is when we heard the sound of horse hooves hitting the earth. A LOT of horse hooves. The elders look at each other and instantly say, “Chirios!”

“Chirios? Who’s Chirios?” I ask, a little concerned. One of the elders grins at me apologetically.

“Chirios is the leader of the local Centaur herd. He came to this area looking to get away from some of the Great Herds that are further west in that wide plain region. The elves and the centaurs have been long time allies, and if Chirios knew that we were being held captive, he would stop at nothing to get us back.”

I nod my head. “Well, in that case we’ll just have to try and get you to him safe and sound.” I look around, before calling John over to talk about defenses.

*****

With the scrapping of our first plan, we quickly set up defenses for the building we are in. It clearly used to be a church. However after we searched the rooms for supplies to use it became clear that this was the town’s gathering point. A lot of the old church symbols were taken down and put away, while everywhere there is spare food and supplies. My guess is that after the Change, people ended up using this as a place to get together. It ended up becoming everything the town needed at the time. A marketplace, a spot to gather and learn what everyone was doing and how they were, et cetera.

What it means right now is that we are the anvil to the centaurs hammer on this town. Not exactly something that sits well with most of us, but we don’t have much of a choice.

That is, until the women and children of the town start to approach. We have locked and barricaded every entrance except one. That last one, while heavily trapped, is still open to allow us a way to retreat without having the people here completely surround us. John was the one who came up with that tactic.

“People,” he told me, “are like water. Nine times out of ten, they will take the path of least perceived resistance. In our case, that means once they find that all of the doors are locked, they are going to come around and look for one that isn’t. Which is where all of us will be.”

I kind of wish he wasn’t absolutely right. I normally don’t feel much for people, but I can’t know who is out there. I don’t know who is actually innocent or guilty which is enough to bug me.

The first woman runs up to the open doors, with a baby in her arms. She’s covered in ash and dirt, so I figure she must have run from the far side of town. She’s holding a baby in her arms, and I can hear the cries, even from the window I am next to.

Oro gets to her first, and I can feel the anger and frustration passing between us on our link. Neither of us like what we are doing. So I decide to change the game.

“Give the dog your child. They will not be harmed,” I shout at her in my best intimidating voice.

She screams as she hears me, throwing her hands, and the baby, into the air. Thankfully one of the elves must have caught on to what I was saying, because they – in an impressive display of acrobatics – jump up, and catch the child, before landing back on the ground. The elves are all mostly in fox holes around the entrance, as we didn’t have enough ranged weapons for them to use. At least, enough ranged weapons they would use.

But it works, as they were there to catch the child. They glance at the woman, who is now running off into the woods screaming. I shout out, “Give everyone that chance. Children aren’t responsible for what happened here. The adults of this community are. If we can, save the children.”

Now all I can do is hope.