Talk to Dagan #85

You jog up between the two Kutollum.
Dagan immediately falls into silence.
You glance at Dorbane, who just grins.
“Something I said?” you ask out loud, but no one answers.
“You know, Dagan, you’re a lucky young man.”
“Oh?” he mumbles, “…and why is that?”
You sigh, “Well, you might not know this, but those soldiers had every intention of killing that lovely girl back there and framing you for the murder.”
A hand, solid as iron, grips your tunic and pulls you off balance.
“I would never harm a hair on her perfect head!” he hisses. The smoldering emerald eyes burn beneath thick black brows. “They are lucky I was not free to act on my own against them…”
“Easy, son,” tempered Dorbane—his own hand reaching out to encourage the release of your tunic.
Dagan’s face immediately softens, then shift immediately to embarrassment. “I-I’m am sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do,” you grin. “She is quite lovely…and I think you’re a lucky dwarf, if my opinion mattered in the least.”
“No. NO!” Dagan whispered, “You musn’t say that! Say anything, please! It’s forbidden by my clan to find a mate outside our race—I would be banished!”
“You don’t have to fear anything from me,” you assure him, “But I would like to know exactly how these soldiers did get you out here into the woods…without a considerable fight.”
The Kuttolum looks over his shoulder. The human men are walking slowly at the back of the party, while Valda and Aggie laugh about who knows what. The sun is climbing into the sky and a bluejay is perched on a log nearby, feasting on a grub.
“Dagan?” you prompt him.
“I’ve loved her since I first saw her,” he starts, “Which didn’t go well with my father—Captain of the Northern Guard.”
You whistle, knowing how firm…even stubborn, Dorbane can be in his traditions. “I can imagine.”
Dagan nods, “So we met in secret. To talk, to laugh, to take walks in the hills.” He smiles brightly. “She’d listen for hours as I told tales and the folklore of my people. She’d share her dreams of running far away, to distant lands.” Then he sighs, “Then we would return to…reality. We would have to pretend we knew nothing of one another.”
“Painful?”
He looks at you in shock, clutching his own chest. “It kills me!”
Dorbane stifles a chuckle.
“To be a away from Aggie is nothing short of torture, I…”
“I get the point,” you cut in, “So how did these soldiers capture you?”
Dagan’s head lowers in shame and you notice he averts his eyes from his fellow Kutollum. “I let them.”
“You what!?” snaps Dorbane, shocked.
“Let him finish, old man,” you interject. “I doubt it was as simple as that…am I right, Dagan.”
Dagan nods in confirmation. “I was to meet Aggie as dusk, while my fathers men were at the tavern. It was a night to celebrate with the graduating platoon, and…” He looks between you and Dorbane, “they were already there. At our secret hiding place. A knife at her alabaster throat.” He grits his teeth. “That was all it took. I couldn’t let her come to harm—no matter what they did to me. They had me eat a handful of root. Next thing I knew, I awoke to your Gypsy friend standing over me.”
You pat him on the shoulder.
“Thank you Dagan. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.”

If you talk to the humans, go to page #12
You decide to council with Dorbane and Valda before you reach the Kings Highway…go to page #13