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Caleb tests the ropes at his wrists. They are well-tied. He wishes the men were incompetent, that they’d gotten lucky, but this had been well-planned A hit, executed well, on a group already tapped out from a long day of fighting through the forest. He would think the men were stalking them for ages if Caduceus hadn't been on careful lookout, or that they were being scried on if they weren't close enough to be shielded by his amulet. Now he suspects that the sole woman among them might have been a druid and perhaps the chittering birds in the canopy above were her spies.
It is Caleb's way to always want to know how things came about, but he sets the speculation aside. It doesn't matter now.
He gives up on the ropes too and takes stock. Beau has blood all over her face—one of her eyebrows is split open—but she’s wriggling in her bonds, alert and spitting mad. He twists painfully to check on Nott, who gives him a meaningful look in return but can’t do much more—clearly they’ve been paying attention or else have good enough intel to know to truss her up like a turkey. It would be funny if the situation weren’t so dire. Their clerics are both bound in the way Caleb is, wrists and ankles and knees; Jester is as squirmy as Beau but Caduceus is sitting quietly, gaze fixed on Fjord. Their paladin is tied up too, but unnecessarily; there is a deep gash at the base of his skull, steadily leaking blood. It looks bad. So does Yasha, who is also unconscious with what looks like a badly broken arm splayed across her prone form, but the mercenary standing guard nearest has already hit Jester once for trying to reach for her.
Four men stand armed around them in the clearing. There are two still bodies lying on the ground. One of them is burned to a crisp—Caleb’s own work, which he takes care not to look at too long. Breathing through his mouth helps, but does not perfectly block out, the smell. The other was run through on the Star Razor, before they’d clubbed Fjord and the blade had vanished from his grasp. It had been a well-executed attack, but not perfect. The Nein had gotten their share of blood.
A fact which Caleb is proud of, but also wary about. These men are not used to losses; the four who remain carefully arrange the bodies of their companions and their eyes are hateful.
“You’re lucky,” the man who seems to be their leader snarls, “That we’re paid to bring you in alive. But I’ll make you regret killing Josiah and Lorraine.” Lorraine must have been the druid woman. Caleb suspects Josiah was the barbecue.
“You shouldn’t have fucking attacked us,” Beau says. “It’s your own fault they’re dead!”
The man’s face, already a sneer, twists into something even more hateful. “Do you want me to—no,” he says. “You do. You’d rather I focus on you. The tough one, aren’t you? Ms. Lionett.”
Beau spits at him, but he’s right, Caleb knows. She’s trying to draw their attention--although he suspects the rage at being addressed by her last name is not entirely feigned. But she’s lost the man's eyes already. He is looking around, searching for a target more malleable than Beauregard. His gaze drifts right over Nott, to Caleb’s immense relief, spares only a second glance for Fjord and Yasha lying still, drifts to Caleb—who forces himself to meet their gaze, heart pounding—and then the man looks away, to the clerics. There he pauses, and looks. Caleb is proud that fear shows on neither of their faces. Jester snarls in his face when he leans too close. Caduceus merely looks steadily back at him.
In that gaze, the man apparently finds what he’s looking for.
“Not much of a fighter, are you, priest?” He makes a sharp gesture and another man comes forward to take Caduceus’ arm as he undoes the bonds. Caduceus doesn’t really resist as they roughly wrench his shoulders back, or even when the man cuts the knots holding his wrists together and carelessly draws blood. He doesn’t fight them as they force him up and pull him away from the group, towards the nearest oak, perhaps five feet to the side of the clearing.
“Leave him the fuck alone,” Beau snarls, over Jester’s alarmed, “Caduceus!” Caleb can’t tell what they plan—to throw him against the trunk?—but Caduceus allows them to half-drag him towards it. One foot. Two.
Which is when Caduceus twists in their grip and sinks his teeth into the first man’s wrist.
Caduceus may be vegetarian, but firbolgs aren’t by nature, Caleb remembers only when the blood sprays and he catches a flash of canine. The man swears and lets go, and Caduceus falls to his hands and knees, scrambling forward. Beau shouts, “Get ‘em!” but he doesn’t take another swing or try to run; Caleb catches only the word “Melora” in the murmured prayer as his fingers curl around Fjord’s ankle.
The man grabs him, pulls him back and slams him into the ground. The other man is on top of him in another second, dragging him through the dirt with more force than necessary. Caduceus is already a rag doll again, pliant in their grasp, and Caleb would think the whole brawl was prompted by a fit of panic except that he can see the lichen creeping up along the ugly wound on the back of Fjord's head, watches the pale pink flake along the bruised edges and leave healthy green skin beneath. Fjord’s eyes flutter open, and he sucks in a breath; Caleb makes eye contact and jerks his head in a sharp negative motion.
Fortunately, Fjord gets the memo and lies still. Caduceus yelps quietly and Caleb looks back to see that they’ve slammed him against the tree and are binding him to it. The trunk is too thick for him to reach all the way around and so they’ve wound rope around his waist and legs and shoulders and, most horribly, his neck. Caduceus’ cheek is pressed into the bark; Caleb can’t see his expression and he isn’t sure he’d want to.
The man is rubbing his wounded wrist. “You’ll pay for that,” he snaps. Caduceus doesn’t answer, which is just as well, because the man immediately slams a fist into his ribs.
There is no word for the beating that follows other than brutal. The men take turns; Caduceus occasionally makes a soft, pained noise, or a gasp as the breath is knocked out of him, but he’s mostly silent. At one point there is a crack; Caleb guesses from the way the hit landed that they may have broken his jaw. Yasha has drifted back into consciousness but is still half-dazed with pain. Nott is working on her bindings, which Caleb should be doing also if he were not so transfixed in horror. Fjord can’t turn enough to get a good look at Caduceus; he can only catch Caleb’s expression, which Caleb realizes too late to school the anguish from it. Beau is throwing every curse in Common at them and Elvish ones besides. Jester is weeping.
Finally they stop and Caleb has the gall to think it might be over, and then the man draws a knife. They’ve all been half-divested of their clothes already, searched for components and weapons before being tied up, and so Caduceus is down to the thin white shirt he wears below his coat and armor. The knife slides right through it and draws small beads of red from the skin beneath.
The white fabric hangs in tatters off Caduceus’s shoulders. The leader steps back and goes for their saddlebags; Caleb doesn’t understand what the man is doing until he returns.
Then Caleb can see the whip in his hands.
Caduceus is already limp against the tree. Caleb looks to Nott again, who has managed to get her arms in front of her and a length of rope in her mouth, working at it with her sharp goblin teeth. She’ll get through it, Caleb knows, but she won’t get through it fast enough to stop this.
Caleb is ashamed to admit he doesn’t watch. He tries to--watches the man roughly grip Caduceus’ hair to jerk his head back, cheek scraping against the bark, saying something doubtlessly hateful that Caleb cannot hear. Whatever sympathy Caleb might have felt for them was small to begin with, although he thinks they must have loved their fallen comrades, but it has evaporated entirely. He breathes through his nose without thinking and the scent of smoke hardly bothers him.
Then the first stroke of the whip falls and he looks away, looks to Fjord, who is still fruitlessly clawing at his own bound wrists and, Caleb realizes, praying. Looks to Nott and wills her to get through the rope with everything he has.
Perhaps she was nearly there, or someone answered Fjord, or the power of Caleb’s wishing is enough, but the rope breaks. Quick as a flash she’s untangling herself—and Caleb watches anxiously but the men are caught up in their own sadism and don’t look back, not in time to see Nott cut Fjord free, and then Caleb. Not before Fjord has freed Jester who frees Beau and they are all upon them.
They are still tapped, exhausted, now stiff from being tied up, but the force of their collective unspeakable fury makes the battle almost instantaneous. The Star Razor nearly cleaves the man holding the whip in two—Fjord almost seems to be glowing, whether with the blessing of his goddess or his own fury and desperation and love. Jester flings a guiding bolt at the second man. Nott’s crossbow bolt hits the same one that Caleb slams with a firebolt, bringing him to a quick and painful end. (Caleb has a vague regret that it wasn't slightly slower.) Beau lands on top of the fourth man and simply punches him, over and over, until he is still beneath her, and she keeps punching.
Caleb thinks that it is Jester who eventually pulls her off him; Nott certainly lacks the strength to stop her and Fjord is already with Caduceus. The keen edge of the sword that Caduceus had forged for him slices through the ropes to free him, the blade glowing in the twilight. They sink to the base of the tree together. With a terrible gentleness Fjord cups his face in both hands and Caleb gets only a glimpse of the ugly purple bruising along Caduceus’ swollen cheek before Fjord’s hands are glowing with the same divine light as his sword.
The rest of the Nein converge on them then. “Jessie,” Fjord says, “Ribs, then his back.” His hands are still on Caduceus, stroking his hair, soft against the back of his neck. Only a faint yellow mark remains on his jaw but Caduceus is quiet. Caleb gets only one look at his eyes before he’s tucked his face into Fjord’s chest, but they’re strange and distant.
Jester has her hands at his sides immediately; Caleb can see that the skin there is darkly bruised too. The rags of his shirt have fallen to the earth now that his arms are free, and his torso is a riot of bruises, still forming, purple and blue and black, and his back is just as bad, layered over with bloody welts. “I don’t have much left,” Jester sniffles, as the worst of the marks on his ribs fade.
“Caduceus,” Fjord says. “Can you hear me?”
Caduceus doesn’t speak.
Caleb fills the silence, “I think he is, ah, elsewhere,” he says. “It is—it is not a bad thing.” In some ways, it is almost a relief. Dissociation was something that was taught, to deal with torture—Caleb never learned it as a tool, and he can imagine why Fjord is so frightened by it, when the only similar thing he has seen is Caleb lost inside his own head. Still, he tries to reassure him. “It is—he felt it less. He will come back to us.”
Fjord doesn’t seem reassured, but he stays where he is, gently smoothing back the strands of hair that the man had pulled so roughly. “Jester, his back...”
“That’s all I had left,” she whispers.
“I’ve got a healing potion,” Beau says. “Hang on.” She reluctantly pulls back and starts for her bag.
“Yasha,” Caduceus says. It startles then all. "Give it to Yasha.”
“I don’t need it,” Yasha rasps. She has dragged herself into a sitting position; her complexion is a sickly yellow. “I’m fine.”
“You’re so not,” Beau says, and then glances between Caduceus and Yasha, weighing her options.
“You have—I think you have some spells left, do you not, Caduceus?” Caleb asks.
“I—“ Caduceus blinks, slowly. He shudders a little; he’s coming back to himself and feeling the wounds as he does. Fjord hesitates a little, like he’s not sure whether he ought to be letting go, but Caduceus sinks more fully against him and Fjord settles. Finally, he says, “I could do a—Prayer of Healing, yeah. It’ll take a couple minutes.”
“The potion first,” Caleb says. “Then you can take care of Yasha, how is that?”
It’s possible Caduceus sees the logic in it, or maybe the pain is too bad to protest; Fjord helps him drink it and eventually to stand. Caleb watches them until Nott comes over and holds out the coat they’d taken off him. She helps him put it back on and he doesn't realize until it's safely over his shoulders how much better it makes him feel. He checks the pockets; they’ve either left his components alone or—more likely, given what he’d seen of them rifling through—Nott had carefully restored them to their rightful places before bringing it back to him.
“I think we—it would be good to rest, yes?” he asks. “I will put up the hut?” He can't dream of going to sleep without a barrier now, although after everything they are almost certainly alone.
The agreement is quiet but unanimous. Nott trails him and holds components for him, a gesture that is unnecessary and all the more kind for it. In the background he can hear the familiar words of Caduceus’ prayers; Beau and Fjord pass in and out of his vision, stripping the bodies of gold and anything useful and piling them up. Beau turns up another healing potion, which does get pressed onto Yasha; as Caleb is finishing the hut, Caduceus’ spell finishes and settles into most of them, clearing some of Yasha’s remaining pallor and closing the worst of the whip marks on Caduceus’ back.
Caleb is not watching Jester; he doesn’t even realize what she’s doing until they've all come and joined him in the hut. All their things have been recollected now and are piled in the center, coats and packs and staffs and shields. No one has much to say; they are all exhausted and hurting and heartsick, and Caleb doesn’t know who to looks at. There is Caduceus, who smiles when he catches Caleb‘s eye, something still blessedly bright and unbroken about him. Fjord, who has wrapped his own cloak over Caduceus’ shoulders, like it might shield him from the world. Beau, who grips Caduceus’ arm as gently as she knows how when she passes by and then budges up against Caleb when she settles down. Yasha, bearing her own wounds but glaring out into the darkness as though daring the night to try anything. Nott at his side, acquiescing instantly when he reaches for her automatically, not sure if he is looking to give or get comfort.
And Jester, who has gone so dangerously quiet. Caleb looks to Beau’s other side to see her sitting, lodestones in hand, the ripped white fabric of Caduceus’ shirt laid across her lap. She is casting Mending, over and over again, repairing the ugly tear one inch at a time.
“Jester,” he says. The name hangs in the air like an unfinished bridge, but Caleb doesn't know the next step.
“I can fix it,” she says. “I’m fixing it.” And then she begins to cry again and has to shove the half-mended shirt away so her tears don’t stain the fabric.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, “I’m sorry, Caduceus!”
Caleb feels freed and ashamed at the same time, because her guilt is all of theirs—sorry I haven’t fixed this, sorry I didn’t stop them, sorry they decided to hurt you because they thought you were the weakest of us and perhaps most of all sorry if we have ever given you cause to believe it.
“Don’t be sorry,” Caduceus says. “We all did everything we could have done.“ He’s still half-entangled with Fjord when he holds out his arms to her, so she ends up hugging them both when she throws herself at him.
They settle down after that, a loose pile of limbs and bruised bodies. Caleb has Nott at one side, and Beau at the other, who has an arm slung over Jester, who is reaching for Yasha, who rests her head against Caduceus who is entwined with Fjord wrapping around to Nott’s other side.
Caleb closes his eyes and listens to his friends breath, listens as they settle, one by one. He is starting to drift off himself when he hears Caduceus speak in a quiet whisper.
“Thank you,” he says, and Caleb knows without opening his eyes that he’s talking to Fjord.
“You, too,” Fjord says, softly. “You saved me, didn’t you? Again.” His tone is self-deprecating.
“I don’t mind,” Caduceus says.
“Good,” Fjord says. “You may have to do it again a few times.”
“And you for me.”
“A few more times?” Fjord is trying to tease, but Caduceus says,
“At least. For a lifetime, maybe.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Fjord says, after a long silence, and if Caduceus replies Caleb doesn’t hear it as he sleeps, or else has no memory of it in the morning.