### 311

You are seized roughly by the triumphant Shadakine who lead you away, grinning maliciously. Your Backpack and Staff are taken from you, and your hands are tied.20 For more than an hour you are marched through the streets of Suhn, coming at last to a large, black stone citadel built on a broad hill overlooking Suhn. This is the Hall of Correction, an instrument of Shadakine law more concerned with punishment than order.

A burly Shadakine guard grabs you by the shoulders, pressing on your wound where the crossbow bolt's shaft still protrudes; pain shoots through your body. He drags you through the heavy iron doors and throws you to the floor of a sparse, stony entrance hall. The wound has opened again, and warm blood runs down your arm. 'I'm bleeding,' you say to the brutish Shadakine guard. 'I need a Healer. This quarrel must be removed and the wound dressed.'

The Shadakine guard looks at you contemptuously. 'Wound? . . . Dressed? . . .' He snorts with disgust. 'That's just a scratch. I've had far worse fighting in the Old Wars of the Empire. No "Healers" on the field then. Where's your grit, boy?' He steps towards you and grabs at the bolt shaft.

'NO!' you shout, horrified. But before you can stop him, he has torn the bolt from your shoulder, complete with barbed head. You feel that you must faint with pain.

'Healers . . . dress the wound . . . hmph!' the Shadakine mutters to himself. He produces a flask and pulls out the stopper. 'This'll stop the greenrot,' he says, pouring a clear liquid over the wound in liberal quantities, washing away the blood. The liquid burns like acid, but it quickly staunches the bleeding. The Shadakine laughs and thumps you on the back, making you flinch.

The crude battlefield remedy has cost you 1 ENDURANCE point, but the treatment is effective, and the injury heals without complications, although you will have a livid scar on your shoulder for the rest of your life.

You are pushed up a long flight of stone stairs and into a small antechamber. An old woman sits at a wooden table, her shrunken flesh lit up by the dim yellow light of the crystal ball before her.

Turn to 289.

[20] Keep note of your Backpack Items in case you should find your Backpack again later.

Concept copyright © 1985 Joe Dever and Gary Chalk.
Text copyright © 1985 Ian Page.