In Pain and Blood

by Aldrea Alien

  “It was attacked, sir. That is why I brought him to you directly. Demarn has but this one spellster left to aid her.”

  “What?” the general bellowed. “How?”

  The hound bit his lip, looking very much like a child who’d just blurted a confession to the very person they shouldn’t have.

  “Come on, dog,” the general growled. “Out with it.”

  Tracker fidgeted on the spot. “I am unable to relay that information without first reporting to my master, sir, which I must now be about in doing.”

  “You’re going to leave me alone with that?” the general demanded, indicating Dylan with a sweep of her arm.

  The hound glanced over his shoulder, his gaze darting from the general to Dylan and back. “He is harmless, providing you have no plans towards provoking him.” With that, Tracker disappeared out the door.

  The general eyed Dylan, wary as if she’d been thrown into a cage with a hungry wolf.

  He stared back, uninterested in the woman’s comfort. Was the general aware of how her lieutenants treated the other spellsters who’d been in the army? And, if she knew of the attack on the border camps, did she also know what had become of the leashed spellsters?

  The woman’s gaze ran over Dylan’s clothes, no doubt marking how worn and travel-stained the dark green fabric had become. “You came from the front lines, did you?”

  Dylan inclined his head.

  The general’s lips thinned. “I have been informed that you were leashed.”

  Again, he bobbed his head in response.

  She marched closer. Not quite enough to touch him. “What happened to your collar?”

  “I don’t know,” he murmured.

  A frown deepened the wrinkles in her forehead. “Spellsters don’t just lose their collars, boy.” Dylan was pretty sure he’d just witnessed the woman grind her teeth down an inch just with speaking.

  “I pulled and it fell off.” There was more to it than that, granted, but he wasn’t about to give the general anything that might be construed as an admission of consorting with the enemy. He hadn’t come all this way to die because someone believed him to be a Udynean spy.

  The general raised her hand to strike. There was a flicker in her eyes. Doubt? Realisation that she was about to hit a spellster capable of retaliation? Whatever it was, it had the woman lowering her arm. “Fortunately for you, a solider arrived not long after your presence was made known to me. A hedgewitch, too, who I hear wishes to speak on your behalf. They claim to have been travelling with you. Both are being debriefed as we speak.”

  They came. Dylan struggled to keep the smile from his face. Neither woman needed to put themselves through what had to be an uncomfortable task of telling their story, but they done it anyway.

  “Once I am satisfied that they are telling the truth,” the general continued. “It’ll be your turn. If your stories don’t match up, you die. Do understand me, spellster?”

  Squaring his shoulders, he held the woman’s gaze. “Perfectly, General sir.”

  He spent the day being debriefed. By both the king’s men and the hounds, and rather brutally by the latter at that. There’d been so many faces asking the same question over and over that their features all seemed to merge together in his mind. No matter how many ways they phrased the question of how his collar had come off, he had the same answer: he didn’t know.

  Such a response never seemed to be good enough for them.

  Eventually, they left him alone in some windowless chamber to wait for the king’s leashed alchemist to fit him with a new collar.

  Dylan rubbed at his jaw as the door swung shut, to the sound of squealing hinges. Even though his magic had long since fixed the bruises left by the last hound and their tendency to grasp Dylan’s head at every question, his jaw still ached at the memory.

  He probably should’ve considered himself lucky that was all the hounds chose to do with him, but he figured his disappearance would’ve only led to more questions their master wouldn’t like answering. That Dylan had limited his magic only to the latent healing only seemed to frustrate the inquisiting hound.

  The rusty clank of metal clashed through his ears. He waited until the sound of footsteps had faded before checking the door. Locked. Naturally. Although it was dark, he’d caught a glimpse of the room’s size. Too spacious to be considered a cell.

  He surveyed the walls under the thin light of barely-formed flame for a hint of an exit. Nothing. With scattered traces of grain and a few broken crates tucked in a corner, he came to the conclusion that this was a disused storeroom. Likely detached from the castle proper on the off chance he decided to begin a rampage.

  Dylan settled for sitting on the dirt floor, leaning against the far wall. He glared at the door. Its dry wood was so tempting to fling the fire in his hand at. He stayed his hand. Anything that could be perceived as an act of aggression would only have him shortening his lifespan that much sooner.

  He counted the seconds, then the minutes, giving up as they pressed into hours. How long were they content to leave him here? Until he got desperate for food and water that he’d actually break out? No, the army knew he was here. Surely they didn’t want to lose their last magical weapon.

  They must be waiting for the collar to be forged before collecting him. Did it usually take this long? He should’ve asked Sulin about the process when he’d had the chance.

  He frowned at the floor. No one had asked about other spellsters, not even the hounds. Did that mean that Tracker hadn’t revealed his knowledge of a group escaping the tower slaughter? Authril, too? Or did those higher up in command deem any information Dylan could give as being superfluous?

  There was a faint grating sound at the door, the slow scrape of a key in a poorly-maintained lock. Dylan snuffed his little flame and stood, content to wait in the dark if it meant not startling whoever had come for him.

  The door swung in, softly and slowly as if the opener didn’t wish to alert anyone either in or around the building. The figure filling the doorway was little more than a silhouette, but the daylight at their back clearly illuminated a pair of elven ears. Had they sent a servant or a soldier to escort him? Or worse, one of the hounds?

  The figure darted into the room and shut the door behind them just as silently as they’d opened it.

  With his heart hammering, Dylan brought a small ball of light to life. Almost losing control over the globe upon finding Tracker standing before him. What did he want?

  The hound stared up at him. The light threw deep shadows over his face, but it did nothing to mask the expression of sour determination. “We need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t.” He was not about to spend his last moments as a free man rehashing their past conversations.

  Tracker rolled his eyes. “Fine, then. Just listen to me this one last time. You can choose to believe me or not, but you are not the first person I have told to leave this kingdom.”

  Dylan gave a derisive grunt.

  “You believe I spoke falsely about the alchemist I slew. I did, but not about what you think. His death was an accident. I tried to reason with him, I swear. What I did not tell you was the reason for keeping his dagger.” He touched the hilt as he spoke, stroking the metal. “The man had children. I told you this, yes? They were young enough that, had they been spellsters, they would not yet show any obvious signs. I took the dagger because it was beautiful, yes, but firstly because we are meant to return them to the tower along with our report of the alchemist’s death.”

  “As well as the news of his children,” Dylan added. A spellster, even the weakest alchemist, could only breed more like them. And hounds. Regardless, those children would’ve lost a normal life, whether it be as another murdering tool for the crown or another body sent to the slaughter.

  Tracker slowly nodded as if he could read Dylan’s mind. “I saw their faces, the despair of their mother who knew what would become of her children, and… I did not have it in me to separate them.
So I sent them away with enough coin to find a new life beyond the border.”

  “So you felt guilty.” Dylan shrugged. “What of it?”

  “Let me help you, just as I helped them. I can get you out of here. It is not too late. You will be safe. Free.”

  More like chased for every second he still lived. “No.” What had freedom done for him but cause more and more pain? If that was all the world outside the tower could give someone like him, then he’d rather spend what life he had left facing off against the Udyneans one last time. “I’m not falling for your tricks and I certainly won’t put my life in your hands again.” Where would he go? Dvärghem? Udynea? He’d never survive the trip to either border alone. “You promised me you’d help me avenge those who died in tower.”

  “Dylan…” Tracker breathed. “I meant every word, but I cannot kill the king’s sister—or her son, if he is truly the one in charge. All that I have left in my power is getting you out of here.” He took a shuddering breath and continued. “You think you cannot trust me, I understand that, but you are wrong.”

  “Really? Well, thank you so much for clearing that up. You can leave now.” He opened the door and indicated the hound make his departure.

  Tracker’s hand slapped against the wood, slamming the panel back into position. “You are acting like a child,” he growled. “All this sulking around as if I somehow personally caused the atrocity in the tower. Well, I am not the monster you believe me to be.”

  “No, you are precisely what I was taught your kind would be. A manipulative, opportunistic, murdering hound.” As his guardian had warned him. “Just like all the others.”

  “I know I hurt you,” Tracker said, his voice taking on an infuriating calmness. “I am truly sorry for that, but lumping me in with them?” He flung his hand to the world outside this small room. “Have I done that much to warrant such hostility? That even after I have proven I mean you no harm, you would have me shoulder the blame of their actions?”

  No. Dylan bit his lip. Persecuting Tracker alongside his fellow hounds was no different to how Demarn treated her spellsters. He’d done his best to not use his magic around those in the villages they’d passed through and the one time he’d done so—defending himself from a drunkard, no less—they’d sent for a hound. It was a small mercy that no one had answered the call.

  Tracker shook his head. “If you let them leash you, allow them to march you back to the border, you are as good as dead. You are one man, Dylan. One immensely frustrating and dangerous man, but you cannot expect to face an army on your own and win.”

  “No, I can’t.” But he could stall them, maybe even bring a few down. Whatever it took to give his friends a chance of reaching the border before Udynea struck.

  He pushed past Tracker before the man could speak further, opening the door and exiting the room. “You’ll have to excuse me, but like you said, I’m dangerous. I must be made safe.” It might take some time to find the alchemist’s quarters, but it was better than waiting around for whatever guard they sent to usher him to his leashing.

  The hound fell into step beside him. “I need to escort you.”

  Dylan hesitated before taking a deep breath and marching on. “I can find my own way.”

  “Allow me to rephrase. I am tasked with escorting you. You are not allowed to wander the castle without a collar or a hound nearby.”

  “Of course,” he murmured. Naturally he wouldn’t be allowed to wander free. This wasn’t the tower, built far from any city in the off chance that a spellster tore through those living there. But that knowledge wasn’t the part that stung. He wasn’t sure where the little spark of hope had come from, only that its absence left a bitterness in the back of his throat. “You only came here because they sent you.”

  “Actually, I volunteered. It was the only way to get the key. I needed to speak with you before it was too late.” He peered up at Dylan. “There is no need to go through with this.”

  He’d no other choice. Even if there was a way to leave the city undetected, he couldn’t get through the castle gates without a collar. Or force. He wasn’t about to attack people whose only crime was being in his way.

  “Magic is the sole power of the gods,” Dylan said, quoting what he’d heard in the army camp. “People with magic are abominations and an affront to those we worship.” That wasn’t what they taught them in the tower, but if the soldiers believed it, then so did the common folk. “Spellsters must be contained or eradicated.” Like vermin.

  At the hound’s silence, Dylan glanced the man’s way.

  Tracker still stared at him, his features drawn. “I have no desire to see you leashed.”

  “Then you volunteered for the wrong job.” The memory of his last leashing sent a small tremor through his body. Dylan shook it free, his breath shuddering. “It’s not pleasant.”

  “All the more reason not to go through with this.”

  “And what do you suggest I do?” he hissed, keeping his voice down to reduce the amount of people that might overhear. He had to go through with this. Death was the only other way he’d leave this place. “I’m not like you. If I run, your people will chase me. If try and find the others, I end up leading death straight to them.” The hounds could already be chasing them down, he was not about to make it easier for them. Dylan eyed the man. “Did you… tell them about the others?”

  Tracker shook his head. “As far as I am aware, the other hounds do not know about them. I have not revealed such knowledge and I doubt that our dear hedgewitch would have either.”

  They halted at a sturdy iron door.

  Tracker grasped the doorknob. His hand shook. “Please,” he murmured. “Do not make me do this.”

  “I’m not making you do anything,” Dylan pointed out. “You still led me here.” Not that there was anywhere else the man could take him without arousing suspicion.

  “Say the word and I will take you wherever you desire.”

  “I want to go home.” Everything had been easy since before the brawl. He’d been comfortable. Safe. Loved.

  Tracker’s shoulders slumped. His breath escaped in one gusting sigh. “If I could…” he whispered. He pushed the door open and gestured Dylan to enter.

  The room wasn’t much bigger than the disused storeroom they’d just left. It was lit by the ruddy glow of a fire burning merrily against the far wall. The light flickered across bare walls and clung to the chunky wooden bench jutting out from the right wall into the middle of the room.

  “You hounds are so very punctual,” a woman said from the far side of the room. She smiled as she stepped closer, a small thing that Dylan supposed was meant to ease him. But she had to know this wasn’t his first leashing. That he wasn’t being dragged into her presence had to tell her he was here willingly.

  Tracker bowed his head. “I can wait if you are not yet ready, dear lady.”

  “No, no. I can take it from here.” She rounded the bench, her dark eyes on Dylan. “I studied your old collar. The metal had several impurities, which I surmise led to its unstable nature. I can’t believe they allowed such sloppy work around your neck.” The flash of purple gleamed in her hand. His new collar. “You will have no such problems with this one.”

  Dylan barely heard the woman’s words. His gaze slid from the metal in her hand to the collar wrapped around her neck. “You’re leashed?”

  She inclined her head. “Indeed.”

  “Then, how will you—?”

  “That is my jurisdiction,” answered an unfamiliar voice. A man stood up from the chair in the corner. Not another hound, at least not judging by the fine, embroidered tunic he wore. The man cleared his throat and addressed the woman, “You have sanction to collar this poor sod.”

  The woman breathed deep, likely relishing the thought of using her magic again so soon after crafting the collar. She strode up to him and, without fuss or hesitance, wrapped the metal around his neck.

  It was over in a heartbeat.

  Dy
lan crashed to his knees. He’d thought himself prepared after last time, but no. The world… He had fallen in love with its vibrancy all over again and now, to have it all go dim. It was different. Harsher. Colder. Whereas the last time was like a vice around his head, this was akin to stabbing an icicle into his brain.

  Wetness warmed his cheeks. A low whine creaked out his throat, already sore from the screams he’d roared a second ago. He curled into a ball and lay there, sobbing.

  “Well, that is one less of you bastards kicking about,” the prince said. The man’s boot ground on the floor, then there was silence. “What is with the concerned look, lad? You did a fine job in bringing him back.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  Track? The hound was still here, watching. The distress in his voice seemed thick enough to cut.

  “Does it matter? If you are afraid he will break after all your work, there is no need for you to be worried. You will not be held accountable. You are free to return to your pack.”

  “Yes, your highness,” the hound replied, the words soft. “I will report to my mistress at once.”

  “Ah. So it is true that you have not heard. It is no rumour, my dear hound. My lady mother died last spring. I am your new master.”

  Dylan blinked, struggling to get a good look at the man through a haze of tears. This was the bastard that had set the hounds on the tower? That had ordered everyone slain? He’d been so close. If he’d known a few moments sooner, he could’ve avenged their deaths.

  He clawed along the stone. His limbs quaked, letting him gain only an inch.

  Boots, barely sullied with dirt, kicked his outstretched hand as they stomped by. The sound of the man’s fading steps, so harsh and heavy, was the last Dylan heard before blackness took him.

  ~~~

  Dylan woke to find he still lay on the bare stone floor of the alchemist’s room. Either someone had uncurled him during his unconscious state or he’d lain here for several hours. He lifted his head. The place was cold and gloomy. A quick sweeping survey of the room told him he was alone.