The torch on the wall revealed a well-groomed beard, short brown hair, and eyes to match. His chin, though strong, was trembling. “What have you done to me?”
Po kept his sword close as Kira knelt beside the man. “Not so tough without your magic, are you?” she said with a smile.
The wielder bared his teeth like a cornered animal, pressing his back against the left wall.
Behind them, Kira could hear the ongoing clash of steel, punctuated by the occasional roar from Kerson. At least she knew he was still alive.
“What did you do?” the man demanded. “Where’s my magic?”
She simply smiled.
The wielder looked up at Po, then back at Kira, not understanding what had happened.
“Now, you’ll answer my questions, or I’ll make sure you never talk again. Why is the White Tower kidnapping homeless vagabonds and street urchins? What is this place? And why in the flaming Pits would the Tower be working with wielders?”
The man sneered but didn’t open his mouth.
“Talk, you faer—”
The wielder leaped forward, impaling himself on Po’s blade.
Kira didn’t move, her mouth open in shock. “Did you see that?”
Po looked just as stunned as she was as he stared at the man hanging from the tip of his sword. “I didn’t do it, Red. It was him.” He pulled his sword out of the dead man’s throat and let him drop.
“I know. Pits! If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.” She got back to her feet. “What the blazes is going on down here? Come on!” She looked at the metal door once more, then turned, and they both ran back toward the fighting.
By the time they reached Griff and Gwen, the majority of the Tower’s guards were dead or dying. Kerson and some of the others made sure of it as they went from one to the next, stabbing those still moving.
“Keep some alive!” she shouted. “We need answers!”
“I can help you with that, Kira.”
She turned as Reevie pushed his way to her side.
“Move,” Reevie said, waving Gwen back so he could get a good look at Griff. Gwen and Preece had been trying to do what they could, but neither had any experience with burns like this. Reevie, though, had extensive knowledge of medicine and healing.
“What are you doing here, Kira?” Reevie asked. “How did you find this place?”
“Will he make it?” Gwen asked, looking more concerned than Kira had seen her before.
The right side of Griff’s body had been badly burned. Reevie poked at the darkest areas where Griff’s clothes had melted into his skin. The smell turned Kira’s stomach, and she attempted to breathe through her mouth.
“It’s bad,” Reevie said after his initial examination. “We need to get him to the orphanage. I have herbs and salves we can use, but there’s no guarantee.”
Gwen looked at Kira with pleading in her eyes.
Kira nodded. “Fine. But I need to talk with Reevie first. Take as many boats as you need and get these people out of here. We have other wounded that need help, and our dead need to be taken as well. I don’t want anyone to know who was here.” She stood and glanced around at the fallen. “We’ll be along shortly. I want to have a look around before we go.”
Under Gwen’s supervision they began carting the homeless and wounded back down the tunnels toward the docks.
At least a quarter of Kira’s fighters had been killed.
Po, Kerson, Reevie, and a couple of clansmen stayed behind to help.
She watched the procession of clansmen head through the tunnel before turning to Reevie. “We need to talk.”
Chapter 8 | Kira
“WE’VE BEEN LOOKING for you for weeks,” Kira said as she and Reevie walked alongside the empty cages, trying not to step on the dead as they went. Reevie limped along, his clothes worn, his face and hands scuffed and dirty. His face was gaunt and his eyes sunken from lack of nourishment and sleep. It was the first time she’d seen him with a beard, the same light-brown color as his hair. It made him look older, more rugged.
“Even Ayri helped,” she said. “Went all the way to the king on your behalf.”
Reevie stopped. “Ayrion was looking for me? Where is he?” He turned and scanned the room as if hoping to see the man in black come strolling in. Kira fought back a sudden swell of emotion. She had rehearsed what she would say more than once if she found him, never getting it right. Then again, how was she ever to get telling Reevie his best friend was dead right?
“He’s not here,” she said, and directed them to a bare spot on the steps to sit down. “How much do you know of the recent battle with Cylmar?”
“What battle?”
That answers that question. “The Battle of Belbridge.”
Reevie shook his head. “I knew things didn’t look good. Is that where Ayrion is?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer, so she didn’t. “Before Ayri left to fight the Cylmarans, he spent every night looking for you. And he made me promise to keep looking while he was gone.”
Reevie smiled.
Kira didn’t know what had come between Ayri and Reevie, probably the same thing that had come between her and Ayri—the fact that he had chosen the king over them. Ayrion had always been meant for great things. Anyone could have seen that, but it was still hard to watch him leave, knowing the rest of them had been left behind.
Reevie must have noticed her doleful expression, because his smile faded. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She took a deep breath and continued. “Ayrion didn’t make it back from the battle.”
Reevie’s brow lowered. “What do you mean? Where’d he go?”
“He didn’t go anywhere. He just didn’t make it back.”
“I don’t understand.”
She clenched her fists. “He’s dead, Reevie. His entire unit was killed trying to save the king.”
Reevie didn’t say anything. He simply stared at her as if she wasn’t there, his face blank, focusing on nothing. Finally, he lowered his head, probably not wanting to cry in front of her.
The silence grew more awkward by the moment. Finally, Kira stood and left him to his tears as she started up the stairs. She hated watching people cry, especially people she cared about.
“How did it happen?” he asked before she reached the top.
She turned. “I’m not really sure. From the pieces I’ve gathered, it sounds like Cylmar cast their lot in with wielders, and they brought an army of hor’hounds down on top of them. But if I know Ayri, he didn’t go down without taking every last flaming one of them with him.” Her eyes burned. Curse you, Ayri. She turned to hide wiping them.
“Did you see the body?”
“What?”
“Did you see Ayrion’s body? Did they have a ceremony?”
“No. They had one for the king, though.”
Reevie seemed to perk, and he wiped his eyes. “Then you don’t know for sure that he’s dead.”
Kira grunted. “He didn’t come back, Reevie. He’s dead.” Typical Reevie, she thought. Not wanting to argue the matter, she continued to the top. “What do you know about this place? Why are the Tower’s guards rounding up vagabonds? And why in the flaming Pits were they working with a wielder?”
She could hear Reevie limping up the stairs behind her. The open room at the top was empty. It seemed to be nothing more than a large junction that connected three separate corridors. The first was the steps that led down to the cages, the second a narrow stairwell on the other side of the room leading up to some unknown location, and the third a hallway branching off to the right. A couple of tables lined the left wall, filled with papers and writing utensils. She marched over to get a better look.
“They were documenting the experiments,” Reevie said as he scuffled along behind her.
“What experiments?” Po asked as he and Kerson reached the top of the stairs and glanced warily around the room before poking their noses in the other passageways.
Kira continued perusing the sheets of paper on the tables. There was little to see but scheduling. Each calendar day had little markings that looked like some form of shorthand. She had no idea what they were recording. The squiggles didn’t make any sense.
“He experimented on us,” Reevie said.
Kira laid the parchments back on the table and turned. “Who was experimenting on you? The wielder we killed?”
“No. Although he helped.” Reevie plopped down on one of the chairs at the nearest table. “It was the Archchancellor.”
“Valtor? Valtor was down here experimenting on people? What was he doing?”
Reevie stared blankly at the wall behind her. His hands were shaking, and the look on his face was more than unsettling.
“Does it have something to do with that metal door we found on the other side of the cages?”
Reevie nodded. “I heard them call it T’Ross Mauktor.”
Kira leaned back and rested against the front of one of the tables. “Call what? The door?”
“No. The room. I overheard them say it means room of a thousand nightmares.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Po asked. “A thousand nightmares doesn’t sound like a place we need to be visiting.”
“I want to know why the Archchancellor of the White Tower would be secretly kidnapping Aramoor’s discarded.” Kira smiled. “Besides, I didn’t think you were scared of anything, Po.”
“Not scared,” he said, straightening his shoulders. “Just cautious.”
“We should go before more guards show up,” Kerson said in his low, gruff voice as he started down the stairs leading to the cages below. Even he sounded wary.
He wasn’t wrong. She certainly didn’t want to get caught down there if Valtor made an appearance. But, at the moment, her curiosity was stronger than her sense of self-preservation.
“Come on,” she said to Reevie, pushing off the table and starting for the stairs. “We’ll take a quick look and then be on our way.”
“I’m not going in there,” Reevie said as he followed her across the room. “Few of those they took in came back alive. And those that did . . .”
Kira stopped and waited for him to catch up.
Reevie shook his head. “They didn’t come back the same.”
“What do you mean?” She let him put an arm on her shoulder for support as they headed down the stairs and between the cages toward the back.
“I mean they came back something else.”
Po turned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Reevie pulled her to a stop beside the entrance to the tunnel that led back to the docks. “I’m not going in there,” he said. “I’ll wait for you here.”
She sighed. “Fine.” She looked at the two additional clansmen who had remained to guard her. “You two stay with him,” she said, nodding at Reevie. “Po and Kerson will come with me.”
The clansmen smiled in relief.
Kira took the left corridor, passing the dead wielder on the way. She still couldn’t get over the sight of him leaping onto Po’s sword.
She stopped just outside the door and took a moment to study it. The light from one of the nearby torches showed a fair amount of rust, probably from their closeness to the water. The entire place felt moist. She drew her sword and looked at Kerson.
“Open it. Let’s see what they were up to down here.”
Kerson moved to the front and grabbed ahold of the lever, pulling it back. The door gave an eerie whine as it cracked open. With a firm grip on his axe, he grabbed the handle and pushed.
The chamber beyond was much larger than the others they’d seen. Torches had been placed on some of the stone pillars, giving ample light. She didn’t see much in the way of a thousand nightmares, but she did see a number of shelves, cabinets, and long tables, with half-used candles lining each.
“Kill me,” a voice said, causing all three to freeze. It sounded like it had come from one of the two tables near the center of the room. She glanced at the other two, and Po shook his head, clearly not wanting to go any farther.
She shrugged off the fear and continued forward, motioning for them to follow. They did, rather reluctantly. Their earlier desire of keeping her safe by volunteering to go first apparently didn’t apply to this room. She started for the two tables in the middle, her eyes darting about the shelves in case there were more wielders lurking about.
They passed a cauldron on the left that was every bit as large as a hogshead. It seemed to be built right into the floor.
“Please, kill me.” The words were barely understandable.
Behind the tables was an empty podium, and behind it—at the back of the room—was a door with some very strange noises coming from it. She kept her eye on the door as she reached the two tables. On the right was a metal table in the shape of a person’s body, and on the left, a wooden table where a man lay bound hand and foot.
Kira pulled her dagger and began sawing at the leather straps holding the man’s left wrist. “Cut the other side,” she told Po.
Po nodded, and he and Kerson walked around the table to get at the other bindings. “Creator help us!” Po jumped back, tripping over his own feet and landing against a set of shelves. He quickly drew an X on his chest and spat off to the side.
Kerson ran for the exit, shouting something about the place being cursed.
“What in the flaming Pits is wrong with you two?” Kira left off cutting the strap on the man’s ankle and walked around the table to see what was going on. She froze, the breath catching in her throat. She hadn’t noticed it at first because of the darker shadows on the right side of the man’s body, but he was missing an arm. In its place was something that could only be described as a scorpion’s pincer—large, with a hard shell that ended in a hooked claw.
The claw moved, and she jumped back, knocking Po into the shelves behind them once again.
“Please kill me,” the man said.
“We need to get out of here, Red. This is the Defiler’s work.” Po didn’t wait to see if she agreed and started for the metal door.
Kira told herself to follow, but she was too mesmerized by what was lying on the table in front of her. She noticed the right side of the man’s face had begun to change as well. A thick crustacean-type shell covered most of what she could see. How far down did the changes go? His clothes were probably hiding the rest.
Giving the table plenty of room, she moved back around to the other side where he was still human looking.
“Have mercy,” he said, his voice coming out somewhat garbled.
“What happened to you?”
“Something’s wrong inside me. Pain. Nothing but pain. Kill me. Kill me!”
Kira inched her way closer to the table, keeping a close eye on his other side in case he broke free. The man turned his head for the first time and looked at her with his one remaining human eye. “Please.”
Her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath and released it, then took another, building her courage. She took one final gulp, stepped forward, and plunged her dagger into the man’s chest.
His head reared, and he released an awful hissing noise that had her scrambling back against the metal table behind her. She held her hand over her ears until the hissing and convulsions stopped. Cautiously, she made her way back over to the table. The man’s eye was still open. He blinked, tears streaming down one side.
“Thank . . .” The breath left his body, and his eye closed.
She removed her dagger and ran for the door, passing the cauldron on the way. For a brief moment, she thought about stopping, but her legs didn’t agree. Po and Kerson were waiting for her just outside, neither willing to step foot in the room again.
“Time to go,” she said.
She got no argument from them as they raced down the hallway and back out into the main room.
“What was that noise?” Reevie asked, looking nearly as frightened as the
two clansmen guarding him.
“You don’t want to know,” she said, grabbing him under his right arm and half dragging him down the tunnel toward the docks. “We need to get out of here.”
Chapter 9 | Jair
JAIR COULDN’T STOP COUGHING. He waved his hand in front of his face, driving back the dust as he walked alongside the old tinker wagon. His skin and clothes were beginning to change color as the reddish dirt from the dry roadbed clung to him. He pulled his coat tighter to keep the dust from staining his blue shirt, but also to fight against the chill. The sun might have been shining, but the wind coming off the grasslands to the north was anything but warm.
It had been a couple of weeks since he had first awoken to unfamiliar surroundings with people he didn’t know, and discovered he was a stranger to himself. As his strength had returned, the older couple that had found him had taken to the open road. With nowhere else to go, he had no other choice but to tag along. Whatever the woman, Zynora, had done to bring him back from the brink of death had also cut down on the time for healing considerably.
Jair forced himself to walk as much as his body would allow. Zynora had told him the fresh air would do him good. He coughed and covered his face as dust from the road enveloped him once again. Somehow, he didn’t think this was what she’d had in mind.
“How much farther?” He looked up at the front of the wagon and chuckled at Tameel’s relaxed position—feet propped up on the footboard, head back against the wagon. If Jair didn’t know better, he’d have thought the old man had fallen asleep. Wouldn’t have been the first time.
“Well, let’s see,” Tameel said with a deep yawn, not bothering to so much as shift his weight. “We left Hedgemont beginning of the week. Crossed into Sidara a good day or so back, so . . .” He scratched the top of his white head. “I reckon we’ll reach Woodvale before supper. Nice little town, Woodvale.”
He transferred the reins to one hand and struggled to close the front of his coat with the other. “Friendly people,” he continued. “You’ll find most of these small communities right neighborly, if a bit on the poor side.”
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