Circle In The Deep (The Outcast Royal Book 1)

by Aaron D. Schneider

  It had seemed so easy at first when she’d crept up the wall and almost immediately saw a child acquisition headed to what she assumed were the latrines for the stockyard. He had been midstream when she’d slid up behind him with a scarf dipped in dreaming bliss. The soporific had worked quickly on the boy, whose startled inhalation for a cry only ensured that he didn’t make a sound.

  She’d yanked the target’s breeches up to avoid getting sprinkled, lowered him to the ground, and bound him securely. Working quickly, she’d fashioned a gag from another scarf, careful that it would silence without smothering him. Her handiwork complete, she’d slid his limp body onto her shoulder and carried him to Sohrab, who’d clambered onto the wall as planned.

  It was not without its risks but her coterie of abductors had provided reports on the watchmen’s habits and she had devised her plan accordingly. It should have been an easy matter to scoop the boy up and secure him. They would then both scale the wall to make the next acquisition at a secondary location in the stockyard. A large group was situated near the gate and she had been certain she could pluck another child in their sleep with no one any the wiser.

  But that had all vanished in an instant when another acquisition—still a child but much larger than the first—had arrived. He’d squinted into the dark and hissed what must have been her quarry’s name as he stalked toward the latrines. Sohrab had managed to vanish over the wall with the bound acquisition but finely honed instincts told Masheed to press herself into the shadows before she was seen.

  For an instant, she’d considered killing the boy and her fingers played across the dagger at her belt, but she decided that was less than ideal. She wanted to show Crim and the others that her ways were superior and she couldn’t do that by dropping a dead child acquisition, which would undoubtedly draw all kinds of attention.

  Instead, she’d wound the venom-soaked scarf around one hand and waited for her chance.

  It took a few agonizing seconds for him to come within reach as he stumbled and lurched in the dark and whispered the other boy’s name a few more times. Masheed almost lost her nerve on the last utterance, certain that someone else in the camp had heard him, but he staggered past her and instinct spurred her to pounce.

  This time, it was different. Not only was he bigger and stronger but he was also wary, possibly because he expected foul play or that the previous acquisition was playing a childish prank. As such, he somehow sensed his attacker as she lunged toward him and he twisted away and threw a punch.

  The blow skidded painfully off Masheed’s ear and her scarf-wrapped hand cupped his mouth but not his nose. She managed to muffle his cry but the heavy fumes could not overwhelm the boy fast enough and his struggles tumbled them both into a midden heap in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

  The acquisition was wiry and approaching the strength of a grown man, but she was trained, vicious, and above all, desperate. More than merely her life was on the line and the realization lent her strength. She scrambled on top of him and forced the scarf over his face.

  He kicked and punched as she straddled him and at one point, even bit through the scarf to the fingers beneath. But with each passing second, he grew weaker and his efforts slowed. Within a few heartbeats, his limbs flopped against her and after a few more, his entire body went limp.

  Panting for breath, she crawled off him and clutched her bloodied hand as she looked frantically around. That had been one of the sloppiest attempts she’d ever engaged in to force compliance from an acquisition and for an instant, she was certain there was no way the entire caravan wasn’t about to converge on her in an angry mob.

  When the torches didn’t flare to life and no enraged cries washed over her, she looked at the boy and fought the urge to give him a hard kick in his pubescent testicles. He’d almost bitten a finger off and when the morning came, she was sure she’d be able to see every bruise she now felt. On top of that, she was smeared in filth. She toyed with the idea of turning him face-down to let him suffocate in nightsoil but ever the mercenary, she decided that would be poor compensation for the struggle she’d endured in his capture.

  After all, with the damage his teeth had done, she might have to buy a regenerative tincture to make sure everything healed and was restored to full functionality. No, she would take him to the prince’s men and that would suffice for her vengeance. From what she guessed of the royal’s intentions, it might have been a mercy to have the boy drown in sodden kak.

  Masheed drew a few steadying breaths to master herself and retrieved the strips to bind her acquisition. She checked to make sure the restraints were tight and she hauled him to the wall. After two quick clicks of her tongue, Sohrab appeared and she handed her captive to him.

  It should have been over. While it had been more trying than anticipated, two child acquisitions made in utter secrecy would be more than enough to rub in Crim’s face. Now, however, this drunken, lurching warrior stumbled in at the last and worst moment.

  Fear and frustrated anger surged through Masheed’s limbs and she skittered over the wall, hoping against all reason that she hadn’t been seen.

  She landed catlike on all fours on the other side and her ears strained as she looked at Sohrab, who settled an acquisition on each of his broad shoulders.

  “Wait,” she mouthed and raised one hand to warn him against moving or speaking. Perhaps the warrior—who even at a single glance had seemed unsteady on her feet—truly was drunk and hadn’t noticed them. Crouched against the wall, Masheed prayed to every dark god and all the devils she knew that she would hear the sound of someone relieving themselves.

  Instead, what she heard was a slurred snarl and the sound of an armored body trying to clamber over the wall.

  “Sssnatcherz!” a throaty feminine voice shouted as a pair of armored gloves curled over the outer edge of the wall. “Damned sssnatcherz!”

  “Run!” Masheed snapped at Sohrab as she pushed away from the wall as though it might collapse on her and raced across the street. Two alleys and a sharp right turn from where they stood was the wagon. If they could reach it, they might have a chance to escape the inebriated fool.

  “Snatcherz!” the warrior bellowed from where she now stood atop the wall, massive and enraged. Masheed stole a glance over her shoulder and realized that Sohrab was struggling to manage the burdens on his shoulders as he tried to run. She paused for half a moment and considered turning to try to help him but the warrior leapt from the wall with a roar. He dropped both acquisitions in terror and their bodies rolled from his shoulders to the ground like sacks of grain as he looked at the descending comet of leather, iron, and flesh.

  His unburdening saved the boys but not him and the warrior pounded into him and knocked him off his feet. The woman floundered for an instant on top of the incapacitated victim before she delivered punches and kicks that reduced the burly man to a pulverized sack of meat. When she looked up from the ugly mess of what was left of Sohrab’s head Masheed gasped in shock.

  The abductor had a moment of horror in which she imagined a lioness leaping after a pack of scavengers that tried to snatch her cubs. Frozen by this image, she lost a few precious seconds which enabled the warrior woman to throw her head back and roar an accusation.

  “Snatcher!”

  Her rational mind abandoned her for a moment and she turned to flee but was quickly bowled over by a rush of dark shapes. Knocked to the ground and with her mind broken in terror, she watched events unfold from somewhere distant as if everyone cavorted about like actors on a stage.

  Dark figures coalesced into the teams under her direction and even some that weren’t. Some distant inkling of awareness told her their presence was a warning but everything seemed so far away that she couldn’t rouse herself to form a coherent thought beyond the numbing terror that assailed her.

  They came like vultures descending on wings of shadow but like the fetid birds they resembled, each one was batted away with contemptuous ease by the snarling lioness. She
maintained a litany of curses beneath the cover of her helm as she swatted them aside with her armored fists and metal-shod feet. With terrible awe, Masheed watched as this seemingly unstoppable engine of vengeance trampled hardened men and women like grass underfoot despite her reeling gait and unsteady hand.

  And through it all, the warrior’s eyes burned within the rims of her helm and remained fixed on her.

  “Snatcher!” she howled, and the mercenary’s mind jolted into lucidity with painful clarity. She was still on the ground and had to get up. Her instincts screamed for her to run far away.

  She was halfway to a seated position when a merciless weight drove her to the ground. With a gasp, she rolled onto her back and tried to force air into her lungs. The weight settled on her neck and she gagged and looked into Crim’s razor-edged scowl.

  “You’ve made quite a mess,” he muttered, his voice as cold and flat as a blade before he looked away and spoke in short, sharp commands. “Toad sting—now! Two doses!”

  Masheed tried to look at what was happening but his foot pressed her down and she could only listen over the hammering in her chest.

  Two heavy impacts preceded a short, trilling hiss which was immediately followed by another. A garbled, wet snarl—almost like something a leopard might make—faded into a low groan and finally, a rattling crash.

  For a single instant, there was silence in the street before shouts of alarm issued from inside the stockyard.

  “Get her into the cart and tie her up,” Crim snapped before he turned an icy smile toward Masheed’s horror-filled eyes. “Unbind the children. I have the last acquisition right here.”

  Chapter Ten

  Everything burned but she could not even scream as her body betrayed her.

  The best Ax-Wed could manage as they loaded her onto a covered wagon was a thin, rasping wheeze with the herculean effort to draw each breath. Her limbs were aflame with an agonizing tension as the venom burned through her and trapped her within a body that was painfully sensate but utterly unresponsive. Even her eyes had begun to dry as her lids infrequently dragged themselves open and shut.

  Despite this terrible condition, it was not fear that drove the labored hammer of her beating heart but wrath. This toxin running through her was not unfamiliar. A child of the courts of Xhultheno, she’d been trained from a very young age to recognize toxins of various origins both by their signs and their effects, so she knew this was most likely one of the paralytics extracted from Wallow toads. Her mother had introduced it to her when she was a girl of ten and as she’d lain on the floor of her mother’s boudoir, she’d learned to hate the incredible powerlessness as the insidious venom gained control of her.

  “You can’t fight it once it’s inside you,” her mother had told her as she wrapped cords of silk around her like a lazy shroud. “But if you are not a fool, you can plan what you will do once you can start wiggling your fingers and toes.”

  The woman had then dragged her to the full bath and pitched her in.

  Now, bound in a wagon that rattled down the streets of Jehadim, she remembered lessons learned as a child bound and drowning in her mother’s bath. The toad toxin was potent and fast-acting but it burned through the body quickly and if you could slow your breathing and heartbeat, its effects would diminish far more rapidly.

  With this in mind, she forced herself to remain calm in spite of all the truly legendary violence she longed to enact on her captors. Her fury became a cold light in the back of her mind, a terrible dawn that would rise in its own time, and she did her best to allow herself to settle into the wracking pains of her current condition.

  At least the wine fog is gone.

  A man with a profile so sharp it looked like she could use his face to split wood leaned over her, then looked at one of the abductors who squatted in the wagon bed on top of the woman Ax-Wed had followed over the wall.

  “Are you sure this one is tied up tightly?” he asked and tugged at the Thulian’s bonds. “We can’t have her getting loose before we make delivery.”

  At the mention of delivery, the woman she had pursued whimpered, which earned her a distracted slap across the face.

  “Shut up, Masheed!”

  The woman fell silent and she sucked nervously at the lip bloodied by the careless blow.

  “I checked ʼem myself, boss,” the other abductor nodded gravely and raised one hand to prod at the blackening bruise on one side of his face. “We can dose her again if you like. I’ve got two more.”

  The ringleader shook his head and drew a frown from the bruised man.

  “No, this has been enough of a risk without dropping such a conspicuous corpse,” the hatchet-faced man explained and his gaze trailed across her bound body.

  It wasn’t the first time Ax-Wed had been ogled but it was perhaps the first time she’d had her body inspected with such a cold and detached eye. In Xhultheno, one of her tutors had once introduced her to anatomy through multiple vivisection lessons. The way this man looked at her now reminded her of how her tutor had looked at cadavers.

  Even a glutton could look affectionately at a hunk of meat but in those eyes, she was merely a commodity, simple matter through which utility was extracted before it was discarded.

  For the first time since she’d followed Masheed over the wall, an icy finger of fear scraped down her spine.

  “If the acquisition fails, we could take the leavings to the Grinders,” the bruised man suggested, although there was a note of hesitancy in his tone. “It might take them all night but they could make sure no one found anything.”

  It was increasingly difficult to stay calm when disposing of her remains was discussed, but she fought off the panic that threatened to spike her heart rate by imagining how many pieces she could cut each man into with one stroke. When the wagon rumbled down another side street, she’d reached four but she refused to believe she couldn’t do better.

  The leader—whose gaze had gone unfocused at his underling's suggestion—refocused and looked at the bruised man with a frigid smile.

  “The Grinders, eh?” he asked, although something in his manner seemed unpleasantly disingenuous. “Tell me, are the Grinders part of our little fraternity of acquisitions?”

  “No,” the bruised man blurted with a reflexive immediacy that spoke of relentless training. “I only thought…”

  His voice faltered and he hung his head. The leader watched him with the flat eyes of a lurking spider and he seemed to shrink before that gaze. Ax-Wed couldn’t begin to feel pity for the villain but she didn’t envy him.

  “Say it,” the leader said with a silken softness.

  The man shuddered and complied.

  “Acquisitions never, ever make contact with other actors except for buyers.”

  The rumble of the wagon over the cobbles was the only sound for a moment before the silken voice spoke again.

  “And?”

  “Failed acquisitions are still acquisitions,” the bruised man said and his voice cracked.

  “Good,” the leader responded coldly. “Forgetting the rules is what makes you end up like Masheed—doesn’t it, darling?”

  The mercenary woman shivered and wept silently on the wagon bed as they rolled deeper into the city.

  The toxin had almost worn off a few minutes after the wagon crossed a waterway which Ax-Wed guessed was the royal canal that divided the Gold Quarter from the rest of the city. She’d felt her fingers surrender to her imploring will and within seconds, had regained a crude control of her arms. With a subtle flex of her muscles, she tested the strength of her bonds. They were tight but she was certain that with a little time, she could at least work a hand free and maybe her whole arm. If she could do that, she knew the two men in the back of the wagon would both be dead. She’d already determined where they had stowed her dagger and ax.

  The warrior woman felt the ringleader’s eyes upon her and although she’d barely moved, she held painfully still.

  “This is an odd one,
” he muttered and leaned forward so his pointed nose hung over her face. She was certain that if he were an inch closer, she could have bitten his nose off despite her bonds and the gag. With a few inches more and a second to struggle with her gag, she could have reached his throat.

  But even if I did, I’d still be in no better shape, she told herself and forced the anticipatory tension to slide from her limbs. He’d be dead but I’d still be bound when his crony stuck my own knife through my eye.

  “What’s that, boss?” the bruised man asked. He still hovered over Masheed, but the woman had fallen silent and still and seemed to have either swooned or fallen asleep.

  “Have you ever seen an acquisition of these proportions?” the leader remarked. “Not only height or bulk but actual composition.”

  The other man ran a thumb over his bruise as though trying to remind himself why he shouldn’t be impressed.

  “I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “I never had a client call for one so big and there’s no profit in making things hard for yourself.”

  The leader nodded and a small, ugly smile curled his lips.

  “The only one who’s ever come close was a request from a very particular lady in the palace. She enjoyed humiliating the unwilling and the powerful. The last one I gave her would have been close to this acquisition’s size.”

  His henchman matched his boss’s ugly smile but then frowned.

  “I don’t remember hearing about such a request before,” he grunted with hesitant curiosity.

  “The client passed before your initiation,” the ringleader said and adjusted his position as he extended a hand to Ax-Wed’s helm. “It seems she did not properly secure the last acquisition and it throttled her and her husband, poor fool, before the house guards killed—”

  “Crim!” An urgent whisper issued from the front of the wagon. “Crim, you’re needed here.”

  His fingers flattened over the front of the helm and she felt a tremble of irritation pass through the man’s body.