Renard covered the arid terrain swiftly and without incident, not sighting another living soul for the entirety of his expedition. Journeying back to Bennett's desperate valley stronghold at last. His mission to locate his sister without delay was the only thing paramount on his mind. It was almost midday, bright and sunny, and a slight cooling breeze blew up from the southwest as the familiar, steep-sided cleft came finally into view. He had ridden hard all of yesterday, camping overnight in the ruins of an abandoned settlement, leaving to resume his journey at first light.

Renard had no concrete ideas on just how he was going to go about the task he had set himself, he would just have to play it cool and see how his arrival was perceived by Bennett's remaining warriors. However, Renard was confident that he was more than capable of running mental rings around Pig and his bunch if he was pressed to do so.

In the back of his mind though, worry still ate at him. Renard's plans were somewhat hampered by his having no clear picture to draw on of the events of the battle. He knew not who, or how many of Bennett's men had escaped Lothar's trap, his only surety was that Bennett, Sven, and Gareth were at last conveniently out of the picture. That was something at least, but he knew that he probably did not have long before the first of the fleeing injured returned to camp and blew his cover. His desertion, perhaps even his traitorous intentions would not have gone unnoticed. Renard would have to work quickly, making every moment count if he was to succeed.

*****

There was no privacy here, not for anything, eyes watched and scrutinized his every slightest movement, even now. Bennett prowled the confines of the steel cage restlessly like a big cat, repeatedly running his fingers along the bars, and alternatively sitting on the bed. Sven and Gareth had at last awoken some hours back, taking in their undesirable situation also, the two men flashing Bennett meaningful looks through the grid of polished bars, but they remained silent not wishing to give anything away to their captors that could be used against them.

The days had passed ever so tediously in this way, though Bennett had no idea if it was indeed day or night above, or much else for that matter. The hard metal and white tiled walls, the floors of cold poured concrete revealed nothing to him of outside. In this place devoid of natural sunlight and fresh air, there was only the impersonal feel of the all-encompassing steel bathed with eerie artificial light. Lights that remained burning twenty-four hours a day, every day without respite. The only break to this monotony of endless hours came with the changing of the watch, and every so often a cowed-looking young boy would be sent up from the kitchens to bring the warder, and the prisoners food.

Bennett spent these initial mind-numbing hours looking for weaknesses that he might exploit but found none he could use to his advantage. This prison was expertly made, solid, and strong, offering little opportunity for escape. The giant of a man deciding that his only chance of freedom would be if his captors chose to move him from the cell. Any who tried this would be very vulnerable at that moment. Bennett could kill a man easily with his hands such was his brute power, and it would take many men to restrain him against his will, perhaps it was his best and only chance of freedom. If and when it eventuated, he would have to try his luck.

*****

Pig roused himself reluctantly from his furs, disentangling himself from Sarah's still sleeping form. Waking was an effort for him this day, he and Dwayne had enjoyed a big night and Pig was paying for it dearly today. His dark friend Dwayne was towering over him, from his lofty six-foot height, as Pig rolled over and looked up at him blearily, feeling decidedly worse for wear this afternoon.

"What is it?" Pig said somewhat annoyed at being disturbed when he felt so ill. Thinking his friend should have known better, as he squinted upward the unwelcome light hurt his aching head.

"Renard's back just rode in all alone. Says he's just checking on things for Bennett, and that the campaign goes well." Dwayne, his voice lowered to not be overheard, reported.

"Shit!" Pig exclaimed as he shot up from his bed, the revelation of being spied on, making him more nauseous than he already felt.

His quick movements suddenly woke the sleeping Sarah, the young woman's nerves so completely shattered by her brutal treatment at Pig's hands, she cowered shaking in the dirty bedclothes, awaiting an order. Pig ignored her completely his worried mind now on other issues.

"I don't like this Dwayne, one little bit, no I don't," Pig said, more to himself than anyone as he scrambled into his foul, unwashed brown hide trousers, and located his shirt, belt, and boots equally as dilapidated and unclean as the rest of his attire.

"We must be cautious of that one, I've never liked him," Pig warned Dwayne as he hurriedly dressed. "I have to think what to do, he'll be on to us for sure, and we can't have that at all."

Dwayne nodded in agreement, prepared to do anything Pig might require to extricate them from the path of their absent leader's wrath. He too afraid of the unfavorable findings Renard would report to Bennett on their management of the camp, and stores in his absence.

The two men wished now that they had been a trifle more restrained with their excesses. Pig grinned at his friend and long-time accomplice, already the alcoholic haze beginning to lift, his hideously scarred face difficult to gaze upon, even for Dwayne who was used to Pig and his revolting mannerisms.

Pig continued speaking. "I think he might have to have an accident. After all the world's a dangerous place." The two of them broke into a chorus of wicked laughter, as they contemplated their latest plan of damage control.

*****

They came for him later that evening. Krosse the ominous black shadow, in the company of six burly soldiers. The prison's iron door was securely locked, clanging shut behind them, the sound reverberating loudly against the steel walls. Bennett was ready for them, his every muscle and nerve, tensed and ready to spring. Krosse came forward toward Bennett's cell, being mindful to keep a careful distance from the bars, he was a thorough man and disliked taking unnecessary risks.

Being as slight and small as he was Krosse was well aware of the importance of keeping a level playing field at all times, especially with adversaries such as Bennett. He had handled big, dangerous prisoners many times before, and Krosse prided himself on being always one step ahead in the game. He had grand plans for Wezley Bennett, a plan whose fruition he was going to enjoy.

Krosse then proceeded to address Bennett his voice laced with dripping sarcasm through the bars. "I trust you are enjoying the accommodation which our most gracious Lord has deemed fit to bestow on you, and your men?"

Krosse gazed without any traces of fear at Bennett's hugely muscled body, appraising him as one would appraise a horse or a bull at a sale yard. Bennett returned Krosse's look with a malevolent one of his own, declining to answer such a sarcastic comment, deeming the diminutive man unworthy of his time or interest. Yet his fingers were aching to snap Krosse's scrawny neck like a twig. In a few moments he prayed, he would get that chance. If the guards saw fit to open the door to his cell.

"Lord Lothar wishes that you be his guest this evening in his chambers, he has much to discuss with you it would seem, and we are here to escort you to him now," Krosse announced, his wandering, analyzing eyes looking Bennett all over before he went on. "It would be in your best interests to do nothing stupid. We can do this two ways. The easy way, or the hard way. The choice is purely yours to make?"

With this Krosse laughed, a controlled outburst that was somehow unnerving even to one such as Bennett, who rarely felt doubt or fear. Krosse's vibrant blue eyes glinted eagerly like chips of ice. The trained psychologist reading the huge man's body language as easily as he would an open book. Sensing Bennett had already made his decision, and it was about to be the wrong one.

"Shall we go then, my Lord awaits, and he doesn't like to be kept waiting?"

Unperturbed and in full control, delighting in every tension-filled moment Krosse stepped aside, as the men with him obviously nervous, made ready to open the cell. Victor Krosse however appeared calm and rightly reasoned the soldiers would take the risks here not himself, it's what they got paid for, and an occupational hazard that went with the job.

Krosse put his hand in his pocket, at once locating his trusty electronic friend, his taser. A hand-held shocking unit so powerful it could bring an enraged man to his knees, and he was eager to see if Bennett would be an exception to its bite. One of the soldiers produced a pair of sturdy iron shackles, and Bennett was almost smiling inside, secure in the knowledge that he could drop most of them before they ever got the irons on him.

The fearsome giant tensed to strike as the key grated in the lock.

Like a coiled panther, Bennett struck swiftly, savagely, muscles rippling with effort, smashing his huge fist into the leading soldier's face with all he had. The man went down in an instant, out cold, face down in a fast-spreading pool of his own blood that issued from his smashed countenance onto the cell's floor. Bennett did not pause at his swift victory, wasting no time fighting furiously to gain the door's opening. He tore at the blocking crush of men with his nails and his teeth sparing nothing in his desperate bid to escape.

Bennett was very surprised and somewhat disturbed to see Krosse nearing him rather than retreating, and he puzzled at this. Skin crawling as his instincts shouted, beware of this man. Bennett in the crowd of guards looking like a bull being harried by a pack of wild dogs. As the soldiers desperately struggled for control, Bennett huge amongst them fought viciously to shake them off.

Krosse was perilously close to Bennett, reaching toward him through the struggle. He appeared to have something in his hand but Bennett could not make out what it was. The huge man was unsure of Krosse's intention, instinctively the warrior in him very wary, the confident gleam of cruelty on Krosse's face positively unnerving even for one such as Bennett. Fighting furiously hands and teeth he had so much else to focus on, and the other five men were still very much in the game, threatening to drag him down. If he could just get his hands on him...

Then came the unexpected, paralyzing force of the electric shock, dropping Bennett heavily to the concrete, his mighty strength momentarily gone. Almost immediately the guards swarmed all over him, their collective weight pinning him down, pushing him into the unyielding floor.

He struggled, thrashing wildly as he felt the irons close on his left wrist, and he was desperate to get up before they got the others on him, knowing if they did the fight was lost. He could not afford Krosse to touch him again, realizing this he made a superhuman effort spurred on by sheer desperation and will and surged to his feet despite the soldiers on him, but Krosse was ready, once again the debilitating electric shock was inflicted and Bennett crumpled to the concrete, giving the guards the final edge in the epic struggle, the remainder of the irons going on. Bennett was finally subdued.

He lay face down on the floor, sweat dripping, muscles spasming, attempting to collect his wits, shaking in anger and frustration, feeling sick in the face of defeat. Bennett could see Krosse's polished boots at close range, as the man paced slowly about him as he lay prone on the floor.

"I see you chose the hard way, very predictable." Krosse sneered, at the same time contemptuously lifting Bennett's chin with the toe of his polished black boot so that he might gaze into the giant's eyes and gloat at his victory. "You will learn." Krosse admonished, a cruel sadistic smile twisting his severe features.

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Bennett enraged and unused to such treatment glared back, promising Krosse much with his eyes, yet saying nothing in return. "Take him to our Lord immediately." With that Bennett was hefted from the floor and conducted to his audience.

*****

The feasting hall was vast and opulent, the ceiling vaulted like a cathedral, the entire structure made predictably of steel, and it was an amazing sight to behold. The room itself was rectangular, some one hundred feet long, and some thirty feet wide. It housed a massive wooden table that ran down its center, and arranged around this table were scores of identically carved, heavy chairs.

As was usual in Lothar's residence objects of rare and precious beauty adorned with profusion. Bennett in his anger saw none of this however as he was conducted to his place at the massive table, his body loaded down with heavy chains. No chances would be taken with this dangerous captive after his escape attempt, Krosse wisely deciding he must keep his latest project under very strict control.

His escort pushed Bennett into the waiting chair at his place and proceeded to chain him securely to it, the table had been set for a feast. Lothar sat at the table's farmost end, wisely putting a good ten feet between himself and his prisoner, surrounded by his guard who stood quietly at attention.

"You may leave us." Lothar said to Krosse. If the diminutive man was upset with his Lord's exclusion of him from the proceedings he hid his emotions well.

"Certainly my Lord," Krosse replied departing from the cavernous room immediately by the way he had entered. Leaving Bennett and Lothar in the company of nine armed men who stood completely motionless.

Lothar eyed his enemy critically across the highly polished cedar table top, the massive man dwarfing the chair. At the sight of his nemesis Lothar remembering vividly that bloody day that had cost him ever so dearly. A day of bitterness and defeat he would never forget, nor would his crippled body ever allow him to. All at the hands of this man, who despite his heavy chains sat head up and proud before him now, flaunting arrogance and confidence. Lothar hardly believed that this man dared to look at him that way. Conceding privately that this fierce giant of a man had to be the most formidable creature he had ever laid eyes on, and wondering just how he was going to exact retribution on one so hard as this man before him.

Lothar shifted uneasily, feeling the ever-present pain of his injuries even through the suffusion of drugs he had recently taken. As he thought these thoughts his body caused him acute discomfort. Though his hard face remained an impassive mask hiding what was within. He would show no weakness in the face of his adversary, it was not his way. For long moments the two enemies held each other's gaze, Bennett's cold stare boring into Lothar's own dark one. Neither man spoke as each just stared at the other across the vast expanse of the polished table and the silver finery that had been set upon it. The mood in the room was electric, the soldiers ranked around them silent, and still as stone.

It was Lothar, who finally broke the tense, expectant hush, pulling a small red satin box from his richly embroidered, velvet mahogany robe. He placed it with deliberateness on the tabletop, his eyes never leaving those of his prisoner as he opened it, revealing a golden amulet nestled within of distinctive and rare beauty.

Bennett knew at once where he had seen that amulet before, it could have been no one else but Frances', wondering how Lothar had come to have it in his possession at this time. He sat cool, but his mind was far from it, realizing that if Lothar had found the girl's remains the game was up for him and his men. The fair-haired girl was his only bargaining chip with this man, and Lothar had to believe she was still alive, or all was lost.

Lothar paused watching his captive's reaction closely, but was unsure what to read there. He leaned back a little in his chair clearing his throat before he spoke, eyes still boring into Bennett's seeking the slightest trace of his much-needed answers.

"Where is my bride? This is evidence that you have her, we found it on the one you call Sven."

Inwardly Bennett felt much relief at Lothar's words, while he could continue to hide the fact of Frances' death at his own hands it would buy him and his men much-needed time. Time to effect an escape, though at this point he had no idea how, and this troubled him greatly. What also troubled him was what was Sven doing with such a trinket, and why? He would not have thought his closest friend capable of such deceit and wondered at the possibility that Lothar was lying to draw him into a trap. Instinctively opting for silence as his best option until he knew more on the matter.

Lothar sighed as he watched his prisoner closely, taking a drink of watered wine from his silver goblet, sensing he would get nothing from this interview except Bennett's brooding silence and the chance to view up close the man who had presented him with so much suffering.

Against hope, Lothar persisted, for he was a stubborn man. "You realize that we know you have my bride, Frances, so there is little point in keeping your silence on the matter. We have one amongst your number who was a spy, Renard, Stephan's son, and he told us where your camp is located and that you have her imprisoned there, somewhere hidden. It really would be in your best interests to reveal to us her whereabouts forthwith."

It took Bennett all his control to feign disinterest at Lothar's words, but he was boiling inside at the revelation thus revealed. He knew this man before him was not lying. Renard had intended to shoot him he realized that day on the battlefield. Subsequently deserting to effect his plans and draw Bennett into this trap, and now in hindsight, he could plainly see why his first sight of Stephan filled him with the thoughts he was seeing someone yet familiar? The resemblance between father and son had been there for all to see.

He cursed himself for his stupidity, wondering why he had not seen it then. When it was so obvious to him now. Bennett was snatched back from his inward thoughts by Lothar's voice once more, and he glared back at him, viciousness and determination in the set of his huge frame as Bennett strove to hide his reaction to the betrayal he had fallen headlong into.

"Your silence will not help you I am afraid." Lothar went on, unsure if his words were having any effect on his captive at all. "We will get the information from you of that I am confident, my aide Krosse has never failed in such an assignment yet. Though I am warning you it will be by far preferable to you and your men, if you would choose to volunteer my bride's exact location, freely to me now. In return, I promise you a clean execution as I would for all prisoners of war. My bride Frances' safety and return is all I want from you. I can be fair, and I will give you twenty-four hours to freely divulge to me this information before I agree to let Krosse torture first your men, and then you for it."

Bennett did not move, outside he looked formidable, controlled, defiant even, managing an unnerving sneer of disdain in Lothar's direction. Inside however he was quite another man. Bennett was very unused to having the tables turned, he was used to being the victor not the vanquished. The prospect of torture challenged him, and he hoped his strong body could go the distance, as well as his mind because he had never had to do it before. He could not afford to let slip the fact that Frances was long dead, her remains in the motoring graveyard of his valley. His thoughts grew ever grim, knowing he was the only one of the three who would have to buy them all the necessary time. Time was running out he feared. Still, while there was life there was hope but he needed a good idea, and soon.

"I am a man of my word." Lothar continued, realizing he would get nothing at this time, and possibly not for many days. "You have twenty-four hours to decide how you want to do this, then after that God help you." This said he beckoned for his servants to serve him his dinner, as he signaled for his soldiers to take the prisoner from his sight, the interview concluded, and his terms set.

*****

Will spent most of that evening engaged in a desperate struggle, determined he would get Aran to safety. The place of shelter he had in mind was not far, but shouldering the injured, by now mostly incoherent, staggering man, the journey seemed very far to him indeed. Aran's weight was heavy on his shoulder, for although Will was a solid man he was no giant. Aran dwarfed him considerably, and he was so weak now the man could barely stand let alone walk. Will constantly urging him onward, one painful slow step at a time. As he constantly scanned the surrounding horizons for ever-present threat.

Overjoyed and relieved was Will when he came upon the other survivors, three in all. Clint, Sean, and Angus, the trio had survived the ambush making it to this place. Each man bore injuries, mostly painful burns, they had rested here in the hope of recovering enough to make the journey home within a few days. Also with the grim purpose of burying one of their less fortunate comrades who could go no further. His final breaths were taken here at this very spot as he succumbed to horrific wounds.

Will sat now by the small fire in this company, as subdued as it was, it was welcome, the fire's glow lending him a cheer he had not felt in some time. He had sated his huge thirst and eaten, and that accomplished Will's mind turned to other pressing matters. Aran lay close by, fevered and weak, his pallid skin soaked in sweat and muttering incomprehensible words in his fevered dreams. They had done the best for him that they could out here in the field and hoped that it would be enough. Aran was young and strong, but as they had seen many times before only time would tell, and that was a hard, cold, unalterable fact.

*****

Renard had wasted no time conducting his search of the camp, nothing was sacred, nothing unturned, he was desperate for a result and running out of time. He had scoured the valley all day since his return, watched with great suspicion by the five warriors Bennett had left behind, as he went about his task with efficient purpose. Pig played it cool, but he was decidedly unnerved as he watched Renard go about his search, feigning lazy disinterest. A plan forming, in his wicked mind, he had to put a stop to this before it got out of hand. Bennett could not know of his mismanagement. Pig feared his leader greatly, and knew what Bennett was capable of when angered, and angered he would be if Renard ever had his chance to make his report.

*****

Bennett sat motionless in his cell as the hours toward the dreaded deadline passed, the interview with Lothar playing over and over in his head. The usually cool and decisive leader was now in a quandary of what he should do at this moment. He had little choice but to possibly sacrifice the welfare of his closest and most loyal men, Sven and Gareth, to buy much-needed time to gain escape.

However, a part of him was beginning to doubt, as he looked around at the confining steel fortress of his prison that he would indeed ever affect such a plan. Never had he been in such an unenviable position as he found himself in presently. All his years as hard as they had been, and fraught with the ever-present threat of death, and danger, Bennett had always triumphed and defeat of this nature was new to him. Bennett found he did not feel very comfortable with this unexpected turn of events.