[Danny]

i'd love to see what you come up with!

i think i'll post another chapter. do you remember Arim? mentioned in the prologue...

CHAPTER 33

When Greeb came round, his wrists were aching. They’d been tied together with rough rope. Drak, Briori and Frag were similarly tied. Around them were several mudokons.

“This one’s awake!” The angriest mudokon approached Greeb and gripped him round the neck. “What have you done with my brother?”

One of the other mudokons sighed. “Leave him, Arim, it’s a huge area, there are probably hundreds of patrols that could have captured Orim. It’d be more likely to be the ones nearer to the fence.” The other mudokons nodded their agreement. The one addressed as Arim reluctantly put Greeb down.

“What should we do with them, then?”

“We should just kill them.”

Greeb found his voice. “No! Please! We’ve been looking for you people.”

A mudokon looked him up and down. “I’ll bet you have, but we found you.”

“No, we weren’t trying to find you to kill you, we need your help!”

Arim sneered and turned away. The others also seemed unconvinced. “What for?”

“We’ve escaped from the factory, and we want to find the local mudokon tribe, to join them.”

Arim snorted. “Can’t you do better than that?”

“We’re not all heartless killers, the sligs, we just want to be free. We were barely treated better than the slaves back in the factory. The only reason we never tried to escape was that we’ve got nowhere to go. The mudokons have you natives to turn to, we don’t. We hoped that you’d understand, and let us join you.”

“Why should we believe you?”

One mudokon looked thoughtful. “We should take them back with us.”

Arim looked at his in disbelief. “Are you mad? They’re obviously lying. They just want to find out where the village is, so they can send in troops and destroy it!”

“Well, if that’s true, if we let them go they’ll just follow us. If we take them back with us, we can interrogate them, and find out the truth. If they’ve been lying, we execute them. If they’ve been telling the truth, we let them join us. We need all the allies we can get.”

“But… But what about Orim?”

Another mudokon spoke up. “Five of us are never going to be able to find him and bust him out. Lipp’s right. We should get back, take them with us, and send out a full raiding party to find Orim.”

Outnumbered, Arim relented. “Okay then, but I want to lead the raiding party.”

Lipp nodded. “Agreed. But let’s get home first.”

One of the others glanced at the sligs. “Do we untie them or carry them?”

Arim thought. “Untie their legs, but tie their necks together. If they try to escape then, they’ll strangle themselves.”

Greeb was roughly lifted up, and a rope secured around his neck. The same rope was then tied round Drak, Briori and Frag in the same way, waking them up.

“What?”

“What’s going on?”

“Mudokons!”

Greeb shook his head. “This really isn’t necessary, you know!”

Arim smiled. “It’s for our safety. We don’t trust you yet.”

And the four sligs were led out into the forest.