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Ghak did not like being treated the way that he had been for the last four days. It was a place and situation that he could not magic himself out of, but at least he was left with some semblance of dignity. The two elves had strange white collars around their necks that kept them from magic and even the simple ability of speech. To Ghak it was obvious that they knew each other and even had a slight resemblance to each other.
Elves usually looked the same to him and he knew that he would have to overcome this if he was to marry two elves that were princesses, not in the ogre sense, but in the Deep Elf sense. As in Deep Elf culture the female rules the society as a queen, while the males in their society can only be princes even if married to a queen. He wondered how they would plan an escape when it was obvious that there would be a scrying device in the jail that him and his two hundred or more comrades had been put in.
It was hard for his comrades to get used to the fifty odd humans and two elves that were in the prison with them, even though the commander and some strange old man that smelt of death and evil was more concerned with torturing the elves and the humans. Ghak looked at the elves and understood for some strange reason that he would need to free them too. Elvin law was strange and protected its people by exacting a private justice on them.
The elves did not like the way that other societies treated offenders and that is why an agreement was made with the other societies to bring offenders to the Elvin courts. People obliged because the Elvin courts, if they found the duly charged guilty, would exact a greater punishment upon the offender than any other society. The one resolve is that they heard the cases fairly and without prejudice of any kind.
There were other problems that would make escape difficult. His mortal enemies, the Orcs that had thrown him and the elf in the jail, were standing in front of the only exit out of the prison. He was thinking of an answer when he heard something flying through the air at a speed that was almost unstoppable. Ghak’s ears were not sharp enough to tell where the arrows were coming from or how many had been sent to flight, which to him meant that it had to be an elf or elves firing longbows.
Deep Elves were trained from birth in the longbow and were not given arrows until their thirtieth birthdays. They were not allowed to go on a hunt until they could fire eight arrows before the first hit the target, which happened to be when they were older than fifty. When they reached the age of one hundred and fifty they were allowed into the army at the lowest rank.
They were trained in all aspects of fighting, but bows, longswords and magic were their preferences. An elf seemed to stop aging at about seventeen to twenty-five, at least it did for most. Aging was so gradual for their race that a human or Ogre would not notice them aging at all. This was all speculation on Ghak’s part because once an elf reached twenty it was really hard to tell how old an elf was after that. Only elves could tell how old another elf was.
Before Ghak realized it, since he was caught up in his reverie, two young elf women that were clearly from different elf clans were freeing him from the shackles and chains that had him bound. The two women were not veiled and that meant that they were betrothed to another.
It was obvious by ebony skin and velvet hair that one of the women was from the Burnt Deep Elf Clan and the other with snow white skin and sparkling ice blue hair was clearly from the Ice Deep Elf Clan. One of them spoke in a strange language to the other and then giggled like young school girls. He did not understand their language, but understood their gestures and realized that that idiot commander did not return his clothing to him.
In elf society it was forbidden for anyone but a man’s wife or wives to see a man without clothing. Ghak soon understood why it was they who had freed him and not anyone else as these two women would be his wives. He smiled at them and they smiled back. Between the two of them they were able to get some clothing that was adequate enough to cover his massive body.
Ghak had to be supported by these two women as they guided him out of the jail and into the forest. They traveled for two days until they reached, what the women called, the wishing tree. He had never seen the device before and it was surrounded by water. Jumping in the water, they quickly sunk to the bottom.
The women said some words while they stood on a flat, round object that glowed once what they said was done. A moment later and Ghak and the two women were in the middle of his hut, which was in the land of his people.