What hope did Roberto have against Zens? At a young age, the commander had infiltrated his mind, training him to torture others mentally, to kill slaves, turning him into a powerful pawn. Gods, would he never be free of Zens’ legacy? One day, would he, too, destroy the people he loved?
Zens’ eyes gleamed fanatically. He flicked his wrist and Roberto spun around in mid-air, flat on his back, the chains twisting around each other as he whirled, making a thick umbilical cord to the wall. As he spun, the chains tightened, yanking him lower.
The commander laughed. “000, look at him. Hung in my web like a fly.”
He kept Roberto spinning. The cave and its occupants became a blur. Zens’ laugh reverberated off the walls, sounding like a thousand madmen. Roberto’s gut heaved. He retched its meager contents over the floor. The chains tightened excruciatingly, getting thicker and shorter, as Zens reeled him in.
He had to pretend he was subservient. It was his only chance. Spinning faster and faster, Roberto shut his eyes, trying to feign defeat. “Zens, please forgive me for leaving you. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Forgiveness is not in my nature. Ask my parents.” Zens twirled Roberto until the chain was a bundle of twisted metal.
Roberto’s body slammed into the wall, the chains biting into his back. He buried his thoughts. It’d be dangerous if Zens knew he’d understood the quip about his parents—that he’d seen Zens’ memory of murdering them.
Zens turned to Ezaara—still prone on the granite floor. Beyond her, Adelina lay, scratches on her throat still gleaming red.
Not Ezaara, not again. Zens stretched out his hand, lifting it. Her body didn’t budge.
Was she dead? She couldn’t be, or Zens would’ve tossed her like a sack of flour.
What was going on? Roberto didn’t dare mind-meld with her. To keep his thoughts shielded from Zens, he examined his chains. His wrist and ankle were bloody and torn where the shackles had burrowed into his flesh. The chain was bunched in a tangled mess behind him, but the fixtures attaching the chains to the wall were now loose.
While Zens was occupied with Ezaara, Roberto stood. Body aching, he slowly turned until the chains were untangled. Then he hobbled back and forward, straining at the loose fixtures on the wall, playing the part of an agitated lover.
§
Zens radiated sickly yellow sathir, infected with an energy Ezaara had never seen. It felt wrong, unclean. Was this what gave him his formidable mental powers?
Her neck ached. She’d landed that way, but deliberately kept it at an odd angle, so Zens would think she was incapacitated. The cool stone chilled her back. She drilled down with her mind, focusing on the heaviness of the granite—its gray sluggish sathir, barely detectable, but there. She sucked the heaviness into her, desperately trying to become one with the massive immovable force.
Zens approached, boots scraping the granite. He flicked his hand again.
Heavy. Heavy as rock. Sweat broke out on Ezaara’s brow. Her flesh was stone. She was granite. Immovable. Zens battered at her. Her mind was a wall of rock. Her body, married to the granite.
Regular footfalls and clanking sounded behind her. Roberto, pacing. Out of the corner of her eye, Adelina stirred—her eyes flitted around the cavern, then drooped again—pretending.
Zens tugged.
Ezaara resisted. Something had changed: Roberto was pacing further than before. An extra step at the end of his route. He was up to something. She had to keep Zens distracted.
“Triple, support me,” Zens snapped.
000 lumbered over, grabbing Zens’ hand. Eyes drilling into her, they stared, jaws tight, dark saliva running down 000’s tusks.
A tidal wave slammed into Ezaara, shredding her mind. Yellow bathed her vision. Her head throbbed. Her bones rattled in her skull. She gritted her teeth, resisting. Her flesh tugged as if it would peel from her bones. By the flaming dragon gods, they’d kill her.
She let go.
Zens crowed as she flew into the air, stopping just beneath the rock ceiling. He laughed, rubbing his hands together. Beside him, 000 guffawed.
In a sudden clatter of chains, Roberto was behind 000, a chain around the beast’s neck, garroting it. “Free the women, Zens. Or I’ll kill Triple.”
Zens turned, eyes radiating malice. “Go ahead. It’s just a tharuk, Roberto, I kill them all the time.”
“Really?” Roberto raised an eyebrow, as cool as a winter’s morning. He tightened the chains.
000 gurgled, red eyes bulging.
Zens’ face contorted with rage. “Harm 000 and the Queen’s Rider’s skull will be smashed on the stone, scattering her brains.” Zens waved a hand.
Ezaara plummeted toward the floor. She’d never see Zaarusha again.
He flicked his hand, arresting her fall, a body’s breadth from the granite. Ezaara sucked in a gulp of air.
“Just another tharuk?” Roberto said, tightening the chain a notch.
Ezaara shot back up, hovering below the ceiling.
Zens said, “Take your pathetic sister and go, but I warn you, Roberto, harm 000, and you’ll hear your darling Queen’s Rider scream.”
“Adelina, open the door.” Roberto yanked on 000’s chain.
Zens snarled as Roberto manhandled 000 out the door, Adelina on his heels.
Ezaara tried to swallow, but couldn’t. Oh gods, he was abandoning her.
Mage Fire
Zens twitched his fingers. Ezaara landed gently on the floor.
“And you thought he loved you? He’s incapable of love. He’s saving his own skin and leaving you to rot.”
Ezaara barricaded her mind, shutting Zens out. Roberto had left to save Adelina. He’d had no choice. But as the door thudded shut, Ezaara’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces, the shards plummeting to the floor.
§
Roberto stumbled out the door, keeping the pressure on the chains around 000’s neck. Shards, he was weak. Physically, but also emotionally for leaving Ezaara behind. His chest was a ragged hole of desolation.
Adelina barred the door. The wooden beam rattled in its fitting—Zens, no doubt. Gods, what would he do to Ezaara? Adelina gathered up the loose end of the chain around Roberto’s leg, swinging it. She hit the tharuk on the head. 000 dropped to the floor.
“Adelina, the key to my shackles is around its neck.” Roberto disentangled his arm chain from around 000’s throat.
His sister unlocked Roberto’s burning arm and leg. That was much better, now he could move.
Thumping sounded in the tunnel. Adelina’s eyes flew wide. “What’s that?”
Someone was running toward them—a lot of someones. “Tharuks. Quick.” Roberto hoisted Adelina up into a ventilation shaft near the door—must have been the one Ezaara had used when she’d first come through his door. Gods, Ezaara. He’d left her with that monster. Hot tears pricked his eyes.
“Hurry,” Adelina hissed.
Roberto tried to jump up to the shaft but failed. Adelina held her arms down. “Grab hold.”
He was too weak. Roberto rolled 000’s body over against the wall, grunting and stopping to catch his breath. Then he propped the tharuk up against the wall and climbed up his body, grasping Adelina’s hands and walking his feet up the wall. She hoisted him into the shaft.
Roberto crawled on battered limbs, his head throbbing and gashes bleeding. But it was nothing compared to the ache in his chest at leaving Ezaara behind.
§
Zens burned with anger, his mind searing hot. When had Roberto figured out that 000 meant so much to him? That his first creation was his only true friend? 000 was the only intelligent, formidable tharuk. Zens had deliberately engineered the grunts to be dumb, so he could keep them in submission. He’d sacrifice every other tharuk to save 000’s hide.
He melded with 000. Darkness. Not dead, but unconscious. If Amato’s whelp had damaged Triple …
Revenge would come later. Roberto would not get away with this. No one threatened 000.
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Zens melded with the nearest troop, sending them into the tunnels after Roberto and his sister. He would own Roberto. Break him and mold him to his will.
Although weak, Amato’s whelp had been walking properly. So, Roberto wasn’t limplocked anymore. Someone had given him antidote. Now that he wasn’t going to die, Zens could still use him.
His eyes slid over the pretty Queen’s Rider lying on the floor. Roberto had found love, despite all Zens had done to him. The best way to break Roberto would be to make him destroy this girl himself.
Zens licked his lips. Now, that was the perfect plan.
§
The tunnels echoed with thumping and snorts. The stench of tharuk crept along the shaft toward Roberto and Adelina. He crawled on, every strike of his palms and knees ricocheting through his battered body. One arm gave out. His face hit stone. He couldn’t go on.
“Come, on, you can do it,” Adelina whispered, voice trembling.
He had to. For Adelina. For Ezaara. Gods, Zens had ruined him.
Adelina hoisted him to his elbows, half dragging him along the shaft.
A low snarl made the hair on Roberto’s neck rise. He forced his clumsy, broken body on. The snarls grew louder. Closer. “Flee,” Roberto whispered. “Leave me and flee.”
Adelina shook her head, yanking him forward. They crept around a corner.
Tusks gleamed among a mass of dark fur.
Adelina screamed. She kicked and fought, but the wall of tusks and fur dragged her off.
Pain seared through Roberto’s leg. “Got you,” the tharuk behind him snarled, digging its sharp claws in, and hauling him backward, away from his sister.
§
The door opened. Ezaara glanced up. Was Zens returning? No, it was 000 with tharuk grunts. They dragged someone inside. The shrotty beasts had recaptured Adelina. The grunts manhandled Roberto inside too, and left, slamming the heavy door.
Roberto swayed, then crumpled to the floor. Ezaara scooted over, cradling his head in her lap. She didn’t care what Zens thought anymore—or anyone else. “I love you, Roberto.” She was sick of denying it. Strange that she could show her love for him here, in Death Valley, but not at Dragons’ Hold. When they returned, that would change.
If they returned.
The odds weren’t great, but she refused to give up. She was Queen’s Rider. Roberto was a master. They had to get back and lead their people. “Adelina, are you all right?” she whispered.
“No,” Adelina whimpered. Neck still covered in scratches, Adelina crawled over, and leaned against Ezaara’s side, shaking. “Reminds me of Pa … beating us.”
Ezaara put her arm around Adelina’s shoulders. With the other hand, she stroked Roberto’s hair. Eyelids fluttering, he looked up, then drifted to sleep. “Adelina,” she whispered, “I’ve always wanted a sister. I found one in you.”
“Me too,” said Adelina, tears tracking down her face as she gazed at her broken brother. “Is there anything we can do for him?”
“Yes, I still have a little piaua, but we’ll have to heal him discreetly, so Zens doesn’t notice.”
Ezaara peeked in her pouch. All of her vials were smashed. Useless. “We’ll let him sleep a little, first,” she lied. Ezaara felt awful, but the flash of hope on Adelina’s face was worth it—even if they never got out of here alive.
§
The door to the holding cell thudded open. Roberto roused himself, sitting up. 000 and a bunch of tharuk grunts entered. He squeezed Ezaara’s warm hand.
“You two,” 000 said, indicating the women. “Zens has changed his mind. You both go free. Tharuks will escort you.”
“No,” said Ezaara. “We’re not going without Roberto.”
“Please,” Roberto managed weakly. “Go.” Gods, they’d come to save him. And failed. Was Zens really setting them free? Or sending them to the slave camps? Either way, they had more chance of escaping if they weren’t with him. His life was forfeit anyway. Zens had marked him from a young age. He’d been lucky—with what he’d been through, he should’ve died already, many times over.
“Roberto, no.” Tharuks dragged Adelina away, her screams bouncing off the walls, hammering through Roberto’s skull.
“Better to go quietly,” Roberto called. Better for her to give in to tharuks? Gods, this place had driven him mad.
Ezaara squeezed his hands. “I love you, Roberto. We’ll be back,” she whispered, then tharuks ripped her from his weak grasp.
“No, don’t risk your life for me. It’s not worth it,” he replied. Zens was probing at the edge of his mind, evaluating him.
A grunt shoved Ezaara. She walked, head high, eyes on him.
He’d learned to love and he was losing it all. And he’d led the new Queen’s Rider, with all her unique talents, right into Zens’ lair. His sister too. He was worse than useless, he was dangerous. When people loved him, they got hurt.
What was Zens going to do with them? Would he break them too? Torture them? Make them senseless pawns, shells of themselves, hurting others on Zens’ behalf?
As they pushed Ezaara to the doorway, Roberto was desperate to mind-meld with her, one last time, to tell her he loved her. Tell her he was sorry. But he couldn’t. He’d risk Zens breaking through her mental defenses. He’d failed in everything he’d dreamed of, and once again become a pawn in Zen’s hands. Hot tears slid down his cheeks, washing salt, grime and blood over his lips.
Then the door slammed, locking out the only people he loved.
He curled on the floor, sobs wracking his body.
§
Oh, Gods, no. Ezaara’s chest ached. Zens had succeeded. Roberto’s body and spirit were broken. He’d wept unashamedly, despair etched in every bloody, battered pore, as tharuks had hustled her out the door. Zens had been pummeling her mind, so she hadn’t dared meld with Roberto, but, inside, she was screaming his name. Throat tight, she vowed she’d get revenge on that shrotty rat, Zens, for hurting those she loved.
For enslaving her people. For destroying all they loved. Anger seared through her. Zens must die and all his tharuks with him.
But right now, she was only one dragonless rider against a monster and his troops. Bitterness flooded her mouth. She’d been a fool to think she could’ve rescued Roberto. Just as much a fool for thinking she could have revenge.
A tharuk troop surrounded her and Adelina, rushing them out of the tunnels. Ezaara winced, bright sunlight hitting her eyes. Adelina clutched her hand as they trekked along the valley floor, dust stirring underfoot. The barren hills were riddled with caves, like gaping maws, with lines of slaves trooping into the hillside’s underbelly. More tharuks tromped past, cracking whips at herds of slaves. A young girl, as thin as a slip of parchment, stumbled. A tharuk whipped her, but she didn’t even flinch as her tattered rags and skin split under the bite of the lash.
Ezaara tensed, about to protest, but Adelina gripped her hand, and whispered, “No, Ezaara, they’ll kill us if we interfere. We must escape and get help.”
Ezaara bit back her retort. Escape? Help? Who was Adelina fooling? This was Death Valley.
The tharuk booted the fallen girl. “Dead,” it called. “To the flesh pile. You, there.”
A male slave shambled forward, eyes vacant and jaw hanging open. He hefted the girl onto his shoulder, then stumbled off down the valley.
Adelina’s grip bit into Ezaara’s hand. Thank the Egg. The pain was stopping her from screaming.
Their tharuk escorts crowded around them, herding them along the valley past groups of half-starved slaves—many with fingers, hands or ears missing. All staring at the ground, mindless. Gods, Tomaaz had been here—Roberto, Lovina, Ma and Taliesin, too. No wonder the boy hadn’t spoken for so long.
“Faster,” the lead tharuk bellowed, glancing nervously at the sky.
Ezaara snapped her head up. Was that a flash of orange? Maazini?
Adelina glanced up too, hope flickering across her face.
Their tharuk troop
drew their bows and fired. Thank the First Egg, their arrows fell short. “Get higher. To the hills,” the troop leader barked.
Keeping Ezaara and Adelina in their midst, the tharuks swarmed up a steep trail. Adelina stumbled, and Ezaara pulled her upright. These beasts were fast. If they didn’t keep up, they’d be trampled. Was Maazini alone?
Ezaara melded, “Maazini, can you see us? Adelina and I are in the middle of a tharuk troop, heading up a hill.” She squinted at the sky. Was that another dragon up there?
“Ezaara? I see the troop. We’ll have you out in no time.”
If only it were that simple—there were hundreds of tharuks to get through. “Thank the Egg, you’re here. Is Zaarusha with you?”
“No, just Riona.”
Kierion? Thank the dragon gods that reckless fool and Tomaaz were daring enough to come to Death Valley.
The tharuks stopped halfway up the hill. Shoving Ezaara and Adelina behind a rocky outcrop, they fired arrows at Maazini. He swerved, dancing out of reach, then swooped, drawing more fire. “Are you behind that rock?” Maazini asked.
“Just me and Adelina. Roberto’s still captive.”
Maazini’s answering snarl seared Ezaara’s mind. “When I give the order, drop to your bellies.”
Nerves tight, Ezaara waited for Maazini’s signal. More tharuks swarmed up the hillside, eager to kill the dragons with their limplocked arrows. How could Tomaaz and Kierion ever get them out of this mess?
“Now. Duck!”
She thrust Adelina to the ground, saying, “Cover your head.”
Ezaara peeked around the rock. A bolt of purple shot through the sky—Riona! Green fireballs zipped from her back, hitting screaming tharuks. Maazini’s scales flashed as he flamed tharuks. Arrows hit beasts. Tharuks fell, blasted by wizard flame.
“Ezaara, stay down,” Maazini called. “Riona, now.”
“Gladly,” Riona answered.
The dragons opened their maws. Ezaara yanked her head behind the rock as a wave of heat hit the outcrop. Tharuks crackled with flame, the stink of their burned fur crawling up Ezaara’s nostrils. Shrieks and bellows rang out. Dragon roars filled the air. Flashes of yellow and green light glanced off the hillside.
Dragon Rift: Riders of Fire, Book Three - A Dragons’ Realm Novel Page 28
