Reluctantly getting up I followed her into the house quietly reflecting on all she had said and how much I already missed her and her family. As I crossed the threshold of the door I heard a gasp that sounded like Dorie, and I sensed a sudden movement in the room ahead of me. Before my eyes could adjust to the dimmer interior light a crushing blow hit the back of my head and I was falling into a black void that opened up in front of me.
Slowly consciousness returned and with it the sensation of pain, which kept my eyelids firmly shut. My head felt like it had been used in a game of street ball.
I became aware of the sensation of something else disturbing, a rocking motion of my whole body. Yes, I was swinging, or maybe I had been hit harder on the head than I had realized. Heat! The sensation of heat also occurred more rapidly to me. The thought of swinging combined with heat reminded me of a pig roast, except in this scenario I would be the substitute for the pig. Panic at the possibility of being cooked over a fire can provide amazing recuperative powers. I sat up in my swinging prison and opened my eyes painfully against the bright light. Coming quickly to an immediate awareness of my surroundings I was glad to see that there was not a fire kindled beneath me. Instead it had been the heat of the mid afternoon sun beating down on me that I had felt. As for the swinging, I was suspended in a sturdy looking wooden cage, which hung over the side of a nearby wagon.
Hearing the murmur of voices coming from behind me I turned as best as I could within the tight confines of my suspended prison, still not comprehending the situation well. A cold liquid sensation engulfed me from my head down as I saw a figure off to my right throw something at me. Coming to a full realization I looked around me, as water dripped off my face.
A large group of angry people were gathered along a narrow bench in the lee side of the hill that overlooked the Kurt's family farm in the valley below. Near the edge of the gorge surrounded by Zoarinian guards stood the Kurt family. Gripping the bars of my cage with white knuckled fingers I tried to call out to them, but was stopped by a voice off to my right.
"It won't do you any good to cry out to them Roric. Besides haven't you caused them enough trouble already?"