Oriantha left without another word, departing the woods for a cluster of boulders about halfway between where they were hidden and the center of the enemy camp. She moved swiftly, not bothering to try to hide her coming. It was broad daylight; there was no darkness to screen her approach. She had to rely on the distraction provided by the battle for Arishaig. She had to rely on speed and surprise.
When she reached the boulders, she wormed her way into their center where she could not be seen and began to transform. She used her shape-shifting abilities to shed her human form and adopt a new look entirely. She turned herself into one of the Goblins she had seen patrolling the camp—just another familiar presence no one would question. It took her time and effort to achieve the look she wanted, but in the end she was as hunched and disjointed as those she had encountered on her first attempt at rescuing the boy. She could not see herself from outside her body, so she could not be certain she had gotten everything right. But she felt the way she wanted to feel, and the parts of herself she could see clearly looked as she had intended.
Without further deliberation, she set off.
She crossed the open space that separated her from the fringes of the enemy camp at a steady walk, assuming the loping gait and slope-shouldered stance of the Goblin she was pretending to be. She didn’t try to hide her coming, intending to show she was a part of the camp and not an intruder. Only a single guard was positioned anywhere close, a creature she didn’t recognize that glanced over without interest and went back to studying the landscape beyond. Oriantha reached the camp’s perimeter without challenge and walked in.
Armed with confidence and steely determination, the shape-shifter moved steadily ahead, looking as if she had important business and a clear destination. This was true, of course, although not in the way anyone would suspect. She ignored those around her, exuding an air of importance that suggested they would do well to let her be. Her attitude and obvious indifference to others worked; those who watched her pass left her alone.
Within fifteen minutes, she was approaching the cage that held Redden Ohmsford imprisoned, already planning how she was going to free him.
There was nothing she could do about whatever alarms might be sounded if the magic that warded the cage was disturbed. That being the case, she intended to break the locks and take him out as quickly as she could before anyone realized what was happening. And for that to happen, she needed a distraction to cause those close enough to interfere to look somewhere else for the few moments she needed.
She slowed as she entered the clearing where the cage had been placed. Redden Ohmsford was slumped in the middle, apparently sleeping. Two Goblins were keeping a disinterested watch on their prisoner, and a pair of the huge wolves slept some twenty feet from the cage, curled up next to each other. A few other creatures could be seen off to one side, but everyone else had moved over to the bluff to watch the battle.
Oriantha walked through the clearing and passed on, seemingly without wasting a glance on anyone. Once out of sight, she quickly doubled back again. Moving to a place close by the cage, but just out of sight, she pulled a blowgun from her belt and a steel-tipped dart from her pouch, slid the dart into the barrel of the blowgun, took a deep breath, placed the end of the weapon to her lips, and stepped into view again.
She was ten feet from the closest of the sleeping wolves.
She sent the dart deep into its rear haunch and the wolf leapt up, roaring with pain and rage, and turned instantly on the other wolf. Taking advantage of the chaos, she came up behind the Goblin guards who were watching the wolves struggle, and used her knives to kill both with a single pass. Moving swiftly to the cage door, she broke the chain and tore the cage door off its hinges.
To her surprise, no alarm sounded. She leapt into the cage, snatched up the unconscious Redden Ohmsford, and bounded out again with the boy slung over one shoulder. The wolves were still tearing at each other, and the guards were all dead. The one or two others who had been present had fled toward the heights to give warning.
Grabbing a bloodied cloak from one of the dead guards, she wrapped it about Redden, tied off the ends so that only his legs were hanging out, and started back through the camp as if carrying a dead body. She angled off to the north where no one was in sight, pretending to be in a hurry. There was still no alarm, and she couldn’t decide what that meant. The magic that had been used to wrap the cage had been set in place for a purpose. It was more troubling to her not to know what that purpose was than to have to deal with it.
The boy was heavy and weighed her down. She knew she wouldn’t be able to carry him all the way back. She needed him awake and on his feet if she was to get him to Tesla Dart. She was choosing ground on which her scent would be disguised by dozens of other tracks, but that wouldn’t be enough. Eyes had seen her, and their owners would remember what she looked like.