The Outlaws

"If he can't kill you I will." Alex said walking through the group wiht Reseno. "By not telling him what he wants to know you put friends of mine in harms way, and when someone does that they don't like the consequences." Caden seemed to tense up when Reseno walked over but Reseno was used to that.

"But if I die all the information goes with me." Hake laughed.

"Who said anything about a quick death. You won't be that lucky." Reseno said, smiling, Alex could've sworn she saw Hake shiver though she wasn't sure.

"Now are you going to talk or not?" Alex asked pulling a knife out, she ran the tip of it up his just hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to cut the skin.

River

Hake took a moment to consider the proposal and then sighed deeply.
"No chance of a deal?" Hake asked.
"No," Caden replied, "We don't deal with the likes of you."
"What if I said I'd switch sides. I can spy for you," Hake insisted eagerly.
"No one likes a double crosser," I snarled, "And a tripple crosser is even harder to trust."
"Just answer the questions Hake," Caden hissed.

Again, Hake took too long thinking over this demand but, as Caden toyed with his knife, Hake finally gave in.
"Fine. I've spied on you for the last three weeks now and I don't know when the attack is planned for. The date keeps changing," Hake grumbled. I didn't believe him and neither did Caden.
"Listen Hake. If you don't believe he'll take your life, perhaps you'll believe it of me. I've dappled in assassinations before now and I think I could handle one more," I stated.

Hake barked a laugh, but Caden didn't miss the glimmer of perspiration that glimmered on his forehead. "I never owed much loyalty to the emperor, believe you me."

Caden smiled. Hake was talking very quickly. "I don't believe you," He said calmly. "For one thing, you've been spying on us for a while, another thing, you've shared more than one cup of tea with the emperor, and, a third and not final thing, I've had personal qualms with you."

He threw the knife expertly into the air and caught it by the blade with two fingers, a trick he had practiced for a while. Then he smiled his old, sardonic grin. "You know as well as I do that the Emperor plans his dates carefully, and he doesn't like to cancel or postpond. when is he attacking?"

Liskano walked into the interigation. "Let me deal with him," Liskano said. He walked up to Hake. "When is the emperor attacking?"

"I don't know," he said with a slight grin." Liskano broke on of Hake's fingers.

"Liskano,stop!" yelled Caden.


Liskano ignored him and said, "I'm not as gentle as the others: Now when is he attacking?"

"I don't know," Hake said with confidence people would beleive him.

Liskano broke another finger. "I can do this all day. If I run out of fingers I'll move to toes them arms, then legs. Now, when is the emperor attacking?"

"Late at night," Hake said with a scared look. "I'm serious, if he changes it, I don't know."

"Thank you, that's all we needed to know." Liskano walked towards the door. "Bandage him up, but don't harm anymore. I think he has taken enough from me."

River

"While your methods prove effective, I'm not sure that was the best way to handle the situation," I stated as Liskano headed for the door.
"You can't just go around breaking people's fingers," Caden added.
"Well none of you were getting answers and we're short on time," Liskano replied.

A little later, Hake was back in his cell with a small guard and the rest of us were gathered in the main room of the Tavern.
"I think it's time to get to our positions," Alex suggested.
"He said late at night," Caden protested, "So I'm sure we can wait a few more hours."
"Anyone for another drink?" Molton asked.
"I don't think that's such a good idea before a fight. i need to be able to concentrate," I declined.
"Trust me. A drink's just what you need," Kasko mumbled.

"Liskano," Caden said, "why did you do that, seriously?"

"Sometimes you must show people you won't give them any mercy," Liskano said. "If they see that you might kill them they scare up and tell you whatever you want. A persons worst fear is death, you just got to show them that you aren't afraid to kill them. Putting a knife to their throat or a sword along their arm isn't enough to convince them that you'll kill them. You got to cause them real pain. Breaking fingers is what I do to get my answers."

"It worked is all that matters." Alex said, she hadn't wanted to look heartless, but she wasn't about to say anything to Liskano about what she had done.

Caden was still rather shaken. The sound of the man's fingers snapping would haunt him for years. "Still, you didn't have to break his fingers!"

"What do you perfer I break than?" Liskano retorted. "Did you want me to break an arm or a leg?"

Caden set his jaw. "I'd perfer you didn't break anything at all."

"But it didn't work. How do you know that he wasn't going to do that all day? He could've been stalling. Better to sacrifice a few of his fingers than the entire community of outlaws."

Caden sat back and stared glumly at his hands. Liskano was making sense, but it still felt wrong.

Then he bit back a bitter laugh. He was a thief. His entire existence was against the law. He'd broken more than one fingers of a guard once, to make him let go, but that hadn't been on purpose. Liskano had diliberatly put a man in pain, and by the looks of it, it didn't seem to bother him at all.

"Caden, it may be a different way then you are used to but that was probably the only way he would've talked." Alex said, "His fingers will heal, but the people that would've died wouldn't have come back. You can steal with out thinking twice, Liskano can do this with out second thought. Sometimes it is the only way," She was glad she hadn't worked on the man, she would've probably been killed. She had tortured one other man to get information about her sister. A picture flashed through her mind, it was of a man that had cuts all over his body, all fingers broken and a smashed in nose. Stupid guy wouldn't just tell her where her sister was, that was before she found out she was dead. She sighed, he had finally told her that if she was ever with her sister or someone else; she couldn't remember who, they would be deadly and that wasn't allowed. Well she was deadly now, and the man knew that.

"Yes, and some people would kill without a second thought," he said grimly. "And they'll betray a friend who trusts him."

Alex shrugged. "Depends on why and who you are betraying," she said. "In some situations, betrayal is good."

"What does right or wrong matter to the betrayed?" Caden said bitterly. "All he knows is that someone he loved and befriended betrayed him."

Alex gazed at him carefully. "If you were able to, would you betray the king? or the emperor?"

Caden started to answer, then grew thoughfully quiet.

River

"Look, it's about time we were gone so finish this discussion later," I decided, feeling slightly awkward about taking command but the others nodded in agreement.

"I think we should take placing at the main entrance," Alex suggested.
"Why?" Liskano queried.
"Because that's one entrance we wont be caving in. We can't allow the main entrance to fall. It leads everywhere," Caden explained.

"And we will all be there? This whole group?" I asked.
"Well where would there be a point in splitting up? Most of the other entrances will be collapsed on their men so the fighting will be strongest at the main entrance," Alex explained. I nodded thoughtfully.
"Okay. Then to war we go."

war. Caden shuddered. He didn't want to have any part of it, but it was that or run, and he wasn't going to run again.

Liskano walked up to Caden, "War may be bad, but it be sometimes neccesary."

"Neccesary, "Caden laughed, "what is neccesary about this war?"

"Well fo rus to defend ourselves and same for them."

"But we don't harm them."

"Whenever you steal from someone you harm them. Make them fell insicure. You take away something someone was really working hard for that you got the easy way."

"Then why do you steal."

"That be the whole basis of my Elvin community. We steal to live, we are all taught the hard way from a young age to steal without remorse, when you be a theif you can't hesitate, hesitation can lead to death and exacution. This stuff I'm telling you I learned over the years. I'm giving you easy access to them. You' won't live as long as I did to learn them so I'll tech you."

Caden shuddered. "I don't want to learn anything from you." Liskano was a ruthless man who broke the fingers of a helpless man who was tied to a chair.

Liskano raised an eyebrow. "A war be coming, and you're refusing help?"

"From you," Caden said. "Yes."

"I know I seem to be cruel," Liskano began.

"Too cruel," Caden interupted.

"Yeah, but sometimes you have to those kinds of things to live."

"We could've lived without you doing that."

"But we would've been caught unawares by the army. My methods are harsh, but effective."