A/N: This is a story I started writing in the winter of Year 2011, simply as a writing exercise after a long hiatus from fan fiction. It was something of a warm-up before starting to write my Dragon Age based stories. Only now, two and a half years later, I happened to find this still sitting on my hard drive and after lengthy deliberations, I've decided to just post it for the hell of it. I wrote eight chapters of it before moving on to other stuff, but if there's any interest in BG fiction these days at all, I might very well come back to this story at some point later.

Chapter 1

Everything was silent, except for the occasional and very distant clanging of chains or heavy steps of the guardian golems. From one of the cages at the back of the room, green slanted eyes of an imprisoned half-elven female keenly observed the all too familiar surroundings, awaiting the inevitable turn of the events that was about to occur.

Jaheira's worried stare was focused on her young charge, sitting in a similar cage to her own, but in the very centre of the hall that was their prison. Leah, foster child of her dear friend Gorion and one of the Sorlyn, the title by which the priesthood of Milil were known as, sat there numbly, like Jaheira awaiting the arrival of their gruesome captor.

All her senses regarding the passage of time having eroded long ago, the only points of reference left were the visits of their captor, accompanied by several golems, one to bring them meagre servings of rations, just enough to barely sustain them, another one to open the doors to Leah's cage and remove the struggling girl and carry her away, their twisted captor following like a dark, menacing shadow.

The druidess cast another look at the young woman in the other cage, her heart filling with sorrow and bitter anger. Leah's lovely chestnut brown hair had lost all of its sheen, now a shapeless tangle, filled with crusted grime and blood. The tattered rags revealed more reasons to worry, the girl had been a little on the thin side as it was, but now the way her ribs nearly protruded through her skin was frightening. Jaheira herself felt incredibly filthy and weak as a result of malnourishment, but at least she had been spared something that Leah hadn't, the frequent treatment in the hands of her captor.

Countless scars and burns, many untreated wounds covered the young woman's body, Leah herself had healed some of them, but lately she had begun growing apathetic and didn't seem to care about erasing the awful scarring because their captor would simply give her new ones every time he took her away. Jaheira had tried to pray to Silvanus, but had found it increasingly difficult, their connection growing weaker with every passing day. Leah still kept the habit of praying every time after she had regained her senses from the drawn out torture sessions.

But now it was that time again. The dreaded footsteps approached, doors were flung open as the golems strode in, overseen by the tall man in the leather mask, their mysterious captor. Bowl with some revolting substance in it was thrown through the bars of her cage, but she paid no attention to it, her stare chained to the gruesome scene before her as the other golem pried Leah's cage open and reached out to grab her. For the first time since their imprisonment, the young priestess showed absolutely no sign of trying to resist, in quiet acceptance she even reached out and allowed herself to be scooped up easily.

Had Leah finally given up? Panic rushed through Jaheira's frame. "Do NOT give in, Leah, do you hear me?" she shouted, but the girl remained impassive in the golem's tight grasp. "Do not surrender to him, I beg you!"

For a moment their captor spared her a quick notice, the freezing chill of blue eyes penetrating through the leather mask taking her aback, but he immediately turned away and she could feel his humiliating dismissal of her as completely insignificant, less that of a fly on a wall.

"Monster!" she screamed in a shrill voice that she could barely recognize as her own, her throat parched and dry. "Leave her! Take me instead! Take me... I beg you! I order you!" she pulled the bars frantically while screaming, but they would not budge, silently laughing at her pathetic, tired efforts. If only she could share some of Leah's pain, if only she could make it easier for the young woman to survive through this ordeal... but no, she did not have the same unique heritage, and no doubt that was the reason why their sadistic captor found Leah so interesting.

Jaheira sagged against the bars, feeling empty and deflated. Her eyes turned to the only other cage in the room that wasn't empty. A massive giant of a man sat inside, his bald head covered by purple tattoos. With his arms wrapped around his knees, he just sat there, unmoving. "You!" Jaheira hissed. "Can't you do something, you big lummox? Leah is losing the fight, we need to help her!" The big man did not react. "Minsc! Snap out of it!" she shouted.

The large ranger slowly turned his head to face her. His mournful eyes told Jaheira all she needed to know, the giant would be of no help to her in escaping. The death of Dynaheir, his travelling companion and a witch of Rashemen, seemed to be replaying before Minsc's eyes over and over again, putting him into a near catatonic state.

Brave, foolish Dynaheir. Not long after their imprisonment, she had managed to break free from her cage and nearly succeeded in freeing them all. Their captor had intervened just as she was about to let Minsc out of his cage, suddenly appearing behind her and then using his unparalleled array of magic to slaughter her right in front of the raging Minsc, her blood and body parts staining the floor of his cage and all across the room. The captor had not even sent anyone to clean up the mess, preferring to let the gruesomely mutilated corpse to lie there as a warning, and the smell of rotting flesh, together with the stench of urine and excrements had made their conditions maddening.

Soon enough, the first cry of pain reached her from far away, somewhere in the bowels of this accursed dungeon. Each and every following desperate cry stabbed at her heart as she cursed herself, hating her helplessness. She was failing her promise to Gorion, the promise to keep Leah safe, and she was too weak to do anything about it.

She couldn't help but wonder what exactly did their captor hope to achieve by torturing the young woman so harshly. Sometimes, when speaking at her through the bars of the cage, she could hear him muttering something about unlocking Leah's potential. No doubt he had meant the Bhaal taint. Did by torturing her he tried to force her accursed essence into somehow manifesting itself? If that was so, the need to put a stop to all this was even greater, everything that eroded Leah's resistance to the taint was undesirable. She was a kind, gentle soul, her measured compassion often putting Jaheira to shame, Bhaal's hold on her was unnoticeable as of yet. If her captor would strip it all away...

Jaheira shuddered, her thoughts turning in another direction, one even more frightening to her than what was currently being done to her young charge. Her slender fingers traced the outline of her wedding ring, thoughts racing to the fate of her missing husband, Khalid. The fact that he wasn't being held here with the rest of them was ominous and she felt a knot tightening at the pit of her stomach every time it occurred to her. Why would their captor take him elsewhere, when Khalid couldn't have held any special interest to the masked man?

She could only recall vague memories of that night outside Baldur's Gate when their group came under attack from an overwhelming force of assassins and what seemed like more terrifying creatures of the night, ones they were ill prepared to handle, powerful as they were. They had targeted her and Leah first, aiming to disable the healers and she remembered being stabbed in her left side just as someone smashed her head from behind, knocking her on the ground. As she lay there, slowly losing her consciousness, somewhere she thought she had heard Khalid's cry, a dim outline of an assassin appearing behind him and stabbing him in the back with great force.

If that vision wasn't just a figment of her imagination, would the lackeys of their captor bother with healing Khalid's grave injuries? Or attempt to resurrect him? She shuddered at that last thought, shaking her head as if to remove such thoughts. And yet, sometimes she could feel a strange coldness pass through her, telling her that he was no longer among the world of living. And yet sometimes hope prevailed and she dreamed of him imprisoned in a cage just like hers, waiting patiently to be reunited with her...

Sparing a glance at the still apathetic Minsc, she was certain of one thing. Regardless of Khalid's fate, she would not allow herself to withdraw like that. She still had her duty, her obligation to keep Leah safe, and she would do anything to fulfil her promise to Gorion. She would keep the girls safe.

Girls... indeed, her thoughts shifted again, this time to another young woman, an impish pink-haired rogue and Leah's best friend Imoen, someone who had been absent since their capture just like Khalid. However, distressingly, sometimes when Leah was back in her cage, trying to recover from a bout of torture or experiments as their captor liked to term his horrendous treatment of her, Jaheira could often hear pained screams of another victim, someone that seemed to be a young woman. Was it Imoen, Jaheira was not certain, but there was good chance of it. But why would this madman torture HER? She did not carry any taint within her, what did he hope to achieve by torturing this innocent child?

Sometime during her ponderings, she realized that Leah's screaming had stopped. Few minutes later, there were the heavy footsteps again and shortly after, the guardian golem dropped the young woman like a sack of potatoes in her cage. Fresh blood stained her forehead as she groaned weakly, a sight that never failed to fill Jaheira with murderous rage, but all she could do was to try and pull at the bars of her cage and scream obscenities at the masked man who ignored her as usual.

Something was different this time, though. Their captor suddenly turned away from watching Leah's desperate attempts to recover, something else attracting his attention. Jaheira tried to sharpen her hearing as much as she could. Yes, there was something akin to... explosions in the distance? What could it mean?

"They act sooner than I had anticipated," the man said in his customary cold, precise voice. "No matter, they will only prove a slight delay." He then turned around and left, the golem trailing after him.

Faint glimmer of hope rose somewhere deep within Jaheira's chest. Someone was trying to invade this dungeon, take battle to their captor, and no matter if they were a friend or foe, she could not imagine that anything could be worse than this monster in whose care they had been stuck for too long. But first, the attackers need to succeed, she realized, watching Leah slowly get up from the floor of her cage and sit on her knees, readying herself for prayer, like she did after every torture session.

Leah's voice, smooth like velvet, rich and soothing, no matter what atrocities had been performed on her, broke the disheartening silence, as always her prayers to Milil taking a shape of a song.

"This rust covered cage," she sang, sounding more haunted than ever. "Is home now for me."

"But my home is the Heartlands. And always will be..." Images of the Sword Coast swam up before Jaheira's eyes, the mighty forests of Cloakwood, the rocky edges of the Cloud Peaks, the stormy waves of the Sea of Swords washing against the cliffs on which Candlekeep stood proudly. Tears welled up in her eyes as the memories of nature's beauty that had been taken from the druidess overwhelmed her.

"Someday you'll return to me... your valleys and your farms," suddenly Leah's voice broke as she collapsed on her knees, shaking in a fit of quiet sobs.

"Silvanus..." Jaheira whispered, tears streaking down her grime covered cheeks, her grip on the bars tightening. Another explosion went off, this one far closer than the others, rocking their cages slightly. The invaders were advancing, it seemed.

I will find you, Khalid. We will lead the girls out of here alive, this I swear, she swore solemnly. And then... then I will find our captor and he will pay for all he has done to Leah. My wrath will be terrible indeed.

A/N: Leah's song is based on the lyrics of 'Brothers In Arms' by Mark Knopfler of the Dire Straits.