Sweat ran down his face and dripped between his legs, staining the wood dark. His wrists were chafed where the manacles rubbed, scabbed over in parts and rimmed by reddish pink skin. Muscles long past the point of cramping had surrendered, and the steady, dull ache in his thighs served to remind Isaac of his discomfort.
He’d endured worse, though, and the monotony of the ride didn’t compare to his time spent in Whispers. Mostly, Isaac felt badly for Teacher and the others, to be placed in a box when they were accustomed to walking freely beneath the sun, caged in manner reserved for animals and prisoners. Isaac wondered if Slate appreciated the irony.
“How long have we been on the road?” He’d awoken only days ago, if he could call it that, and he’d slowly been piecing the story together, though nobody seemed to want to give him the full version.
“Week and a half, maybe more.” Crymson wiped her forehead against Alocar’s shoulder, removing the sweat trickling into her eyes.
Conversation exhausted, Isaac rested his chin on his chest, waiting. Kross normally let them out at midday to eat and relieve themselves, and then again at night to sleep. Otherwise, they stayed in the wagon, nothing to do but think and watch the road pass while occasional travelers rode the other direction, giving the prisoners looks of either disdain or pity, depending on the cards life had dealt them.
“Pass the gravy, would you?” Isaac’s mentor reached across the table, scooting the dish closer to Grace’s mother.
“Grace,” Grace’s mother said as she poured gravy over her rice, “what did you and Isaac do today?”
Isaac caught Grace’s attention, remembering the episode with the fruit vendor, and they both burst out into laughter. The adults at the table exchanged knowing glances, but didn’t comment.
His mentor rolled his sleeves up and laced his hands over his stomach. “You know, I’m glad we came over here those years ago. Who would have thought your daughter and Isaac would have hit it off so well?”
“Sometimes, that’s just how it is,” said Grace’s mother. “Now, who’s ready for dessert?”
Shadows lengthened as the day wore on. The wagon pulled off the King’s Road, slowing down. Kross’s swollen head popped itself around the wagon’s end, chewing languidly on some green, a minty whiff brushing Isaac’s nose.
Don’t make problems for me and you can stretch out, even lie down to sleep. Bother me and you’ll be sitting in your own shit the rest of the trip.” Small key in hand, Kross unlocked Isaac’s chains and removed the stakes. Isaac shook his legs, popping the ligaments, and then hopped down from the wagon. A long fall, Isaac almost ate dirt, but Kross caught his elbow, waiting until Isaac found his footing before releasing it.
After freeing the others, Kross jumped back to the earth and nodded toward the miniature orange blaze, the others clambering down behind him. “Going to be chilly tonight. Scroggs and Lupton should have something to grub on soon, so go ahead and get comfortable.” Following his own advice, Kross put his back to a log overlooking the wagon, keeping Isaac and the others in view.
Isaac put his feet inches from the fire. He felt the tug of his magic, but when he extended his hand, it squirmed away, keeping just out of reach. Had the fever burned away his gift? Nobody had ever told him if being a Blessed was forever. Nobody had ever told him if the well could dry up. Permanently.
He had very few recollections of that charred day, and none from Hammonfall, but from the descriptions, Isaac knew that he hadn’t been himself, and he hadn’t yet come to terms with how he felt about that fact.
Was it wrong of him to do something over which he had no control? Was it evil for him to take the life of another, but not remember it? From what Crymson and the others had told him, he’d saved their lives, but at what cost? Was it worth it?
Looking at Teacher, whose perpetually happy face looked to be in danger of collapsing into a frown, Isaac decided that yes, it was worth it. His power was nothing if he couldn’t use it to help his friends and – he started, surprising himself. Is that what these people were becoming to him? Friends?
Slate pulled at a piece of meat with his teeth, twisting it away from him, tearing it in bite-sized pieces and then sharing it with Teacher, whose hands had been relocked to his feet beneath Kross’s wary eyes. Yes, Isaac decided, that’s what they had become to him: friends.
Across the fire, through the flames, Kross watched him with hooded eyes. The day Isaac had awakened from his self-induced coma, Kross had poked and prodded him, questioning him all the while. Somehow – and Isaac had no idea through what manner – Kross suspected or knew of Isaac’s lineage.
From the side of the fire nearest the wagon, Slate spoke up. “Hey Scroggs, remember that time I took all your money playing poker? The wife probably hates you, don’t you, Lupton?”
Isaac almost chuckled, but turned it into a cough, for he hadn’t yet received his piece of venison from the man. Slate had no such scruples, though, and he continued ribbing the driver, as he’d done since Isaac had awoken.
“But, I guess it’s only fair that you lose all the money, being married to an ugly son of a bitch like Lupton. Guess you didn’t marry for beauty, did you Scroggs?”
Scroggs, in the middle of swinging a flaming branch at Slate, froze, the branch traveling so slowly that it looked as though it had stilled completely. Kross got up and walked to the driver, chewing green. He slapped Scroggs, and then backhanded him, the branch still on its way to Slate’s chest. He kicked in the back of the driver’s knees, and Scroggs fell to the ground.
Kross’s voice had a musical, almost lilting quality to it as he addressed Slate. “Next time you jibe him, I’m going to allow him to use that branch on you. Understand?”
Slate laughed.
Another flash of green, and Scroggs resumed normal motion, but Kross’s boot was already on his chest. “You try fucking with my prisoners again, and I’m going to tie you to the wagon and drag you back to Tabernack.” Scroggs nodded violently, releasing the branch.
Reaching above his head, Isaac gratefully accepted a piece of meat on a skewer from Lupton. Blood dripped from its tender outside as he gnawed at it, his gums burning where the fat and gristle touched.
Kross came around the fire and sat in front of Isaac, watching him while he ate, less than three feet from Isaac’s cuffed hands.
“What are you?”
Isaac kept chewing, debating on how to reply. He swallowed. “The same as you, I think.”
Producing a notebook, Kross scribbled something in it, looked back up, studied Isaac’s face, and then wrote something else down.
“How long have you been one?”
“Uhh.” Isaac wiped blood from his chin. “Why do you want to know?”
Kross glanced up from his scribbling. “You’re the first I’ve met, other than myself. Everything else is just things I’ve read, folklore, stories. Who doesn’t want to know their own history?”
“Okay. I’ll tell you what I know, but first, one thing.”
“Hmmm?”
Isaac nodded toward Teacher, whose hands were still chained to his ankles, a flesh covered roly-poly. “Let him stretch. Out of all of us, he’s the least harm to you. Promise. And when we get back on the road, we get an extra break, time enough to drink some water, see the sun.”
“And then you and I will talk about what I wish.” Kross pointed his pencil at Isaac’s face.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.” Kross stood, leaving his notebook on the ground, charcoal pencil lying across it. “And I’ll get you some more food. We have a lot to talk about before I turn you over.”
Pulling the key from his pocket, still chewing on the minty green, Kross unchained Teacher’s manacles, and Isaac let part of himself relax. If he was going to consider them his friends, then he needed to be one in return, and it started with the small things.
Crymson
“Might as well rest up,” Kross said. “Last day on the road with me tomorrow.” He’d just fi
nished writing in his notebook for the night, a leather-bound article, twin holes in the left-hand side of its pages, cinched with yellowed string and crimped in the middle. Emblazoned across its top in stark black was a solitary B, and below, in a tight, cramped hand, the initials K.P. were scrawled.
Kross caught her looking and promptly shoved it in his back pocket, curving the notebook into its now natural state. “Yes?”
“Just wondering what you’re always writing in that thing.” The others had fallen asleep, scattered around the fire.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
Crymson shrugged, nestling her head against the weedy, sunbaked grass growing near the road. “What’s in this for you? Capturing us, I mean. Is it just the money?”
“It’s never ‘just’ anything. You should know that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do people worship at your altar?” Kross mimed subservience with his hands, flattening them against one another.
“In layman’s terms, it’s because they want to believe something is out there, something bigger and better than they are, watching over them.”
“You’re not answering my question. Why do they worship?”
She frowned. “I just told you.”
“No. Maybe some of them, I’ll grant you that, but the majority? No. People worship because they’re scared. They’re terrified of what’s out there, and they want a defense against whatever it is, so they look to you to keep them safe, and in your own way, you try, knowing all the while you’re powerless to stop anything truly threatening.”
“Okay, but now you’re avoiding my question.” Crymson propped her elbow against the grass and sat up.
“But I have answered you. The followers of the Cao Fen worship at your altar because it’s in their best interests. They think that without something watching over them, they’ll be helpless, unable to pursue what they really care about: family, money, relationships, true love, whatever it may be. I’m the same as them, except I know the truth: nothing in this world or out can protect you, but if you have enough money, then you can buy time to do the things you want. That’s my altar. Money.”
The sun rose, and the next day passed in silence, a weary sense of defeatism permeating the group. Kross had chained her back to Teacher, who sweated profusely, soaking Crymson’s shirt, a cooling sensation that made her want to lean into him, despite the smell.
The bumpy King’s Road transformed into what felt like cobblestones, and the roar of what Crymson could only assume was an afternoon crowd surrounded them, small snippets of commoners’ lives occasionally visible through the newly hung rear curtain. People, busily hurrying to jobs that hurried them to their graves, jostled the wagon’s sides, and they rocked in time to the motion.
“Tabernack,” said Alocar softly, and then, louder, “We have to know what to expect from here. Whatever happens, we can’t tell them why we’re here.”
Crymson let herself relax fully into Teacher. Here comes Slate.
But instead of arguing, Slate just grunted and said, “He’s right. One word of our true purpose and we’ll be dead before we can think about it. Keep your mouths shut.”
After what felt like hours of wading through the yells and screams of a descending warrior horde, likely just merchants brandishing their surely ineffective wares, the wagon slowed to a halt. A hand ripped the canvas flap aside, revealing Kross, sitting atop his painted pony. In his other hand, he held five hoods, each blacker and thicker than the last.
“All right, end of the road. Hoods go on and they don’t come off until you’re where you’re supposed to be.”
Blackness enshrouded her. Kross left them to sit, the wagon’s canvas doing little to protect them from the heat. Time passed. The cloth scratched her cheek, lines of flame that widened with every turn of her neck. She tried to sleep. Failed.
“Don’t forget,” she heard Alocar say.
More time passed. Somebody removed her from the wagon and they walked in circles, maybe literally; she couldn’t tell. Hands never left her elbows. Doors opened and closed behind them, then in front, and then behind them again. They turned, walked, turned, and walked again. Voices hummed around her, snatches of conversation barely audible, never enough to understand more than one word in three. Footsteps echoed alongside hers.
Crymson’s heart beat steadily. Where were the others?
They stopped. Foreign hands shoved her into a chair. A captor pushed her forearms down. Something tightened over her left wrist, but left the right one free. A click. Another click. She couldn’t move her legs.
Somebody ripped her hood off, the material catching the scratches on her cheeks and ripping them farther so that she felt a warm trickle of blood run down her jawline and onto her neck and collarbone. She blinked, adjusting to the sudden influx of light.
In front of her, a foot beyond reach, a hand had thrust a knife into a table, its bold edge shining faintly in the torchlight. Beyond the table sat Alocar, chained in a manner identical to hers, hood on the ground in front of him, red-faced and puffing.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Seem to be. Notice much on the way in?”
“Not a thing.”
“I guess we’re meant to wait,” she said, each of them eyeing the knife embedded in the table. “So let’s wait.”
Slate and Teacher
Slate couldn’t move. Wire speculums, personifications of cruel intentions, held open his unblinking eyes, an unseen hand dripping water into them every few minutes. A strip of something soft ran tightly around his neck, a wire around his forehead, preventing him from turning, and his arms and legs were bound to a chair.
“Just stay calm, Teach,” said Slate, using the only part of him that could still function. “We’ll be alright, I promise.”
They’d chained Teacher in front of him, his arms stretched beside his head, his eyes frantic, moving left, then right, and then around the room. His huge chest labored, and his hands strained against their cuffs, but Slate could tell that it was useless as they bit into his flesh, drawing blood.
“Teach!” The big man looked at him, confused, a sight that ripped wide a piece of Slate’s heart, letting in a stream of anger, tinted with the icy thirst for revenge.
“Listen to me. Just quit moving. They’ll come for us, and soon, and then we’ll get out of here. Save your energy.”
Teacher calmed, but his chest still rose and fell faster than normal.
“You remember your old school, buddy? Remember those kids you used to teach? Bet they’re all grown up by now. I bet – ”
The room’s only door swung open, admitting a pinched man, clad in red robes. Cao Fen. Behind him came a tall, ghost-pale man carrying a large, clasped box.
The Cao Fen’s feet grated against the floor; Slate strained to watch his movements in the corner of his vision. Placing the box on the room’s only table, the ghost pulled the clasp up and out, and then shoved back the lid. The Priest peered at Slate through one clear eye, the other milky, and then pulled an instrument from the box, and then another, slowly emptying it.
Gnarled hands moving with steady slowness, the Cao Fen Priest removed a piece of metal, shaped much like a claw with three long fingers. His neck craned to look at Teacher, back to the claw in his hand, and then back at Teacher. Finally, he set the claw down and pushed it across the table. Pliers of varying sizes followed. Hammers, screws, and then a small leather belt.
Finally, the Priest stepped back and then walked up to Slate. Inches away, he twisted to look at the side of Slate’s head, and then under his neck. His eyes traced Slate’s body. Up close, red streaked the priest’s milky eye.
“If you’re going to kiss me, I’ll need to see the money up front. I charge double for ugly.”
A smile from the Priest, the corners of his mouth flecked with spittle from his open-mouthed breathing. He nodded to the ghost, who looped the belt together and snapped it closed, making the ends pop. As the Priest shuffled to t
he table, the ghost wrapped the belt around Teacher’s head and pulled it tight, so that it forced itself against Teacher’s teeth and then split his mouth open wide, compressing his cheeks. Teacher started moaning, shaking his head back and forth in an effort to breathe around the leather.
Slate watched, trying to control himself. A drop of water in his left, a drop of water in his right.
Finding what he was looking for, the Priest made his way to Teacher. He ran a wrinkled finger down Teacher’s cheek, caressing it, and then grabbed the belt and yanked. Blood started streaming from Teacher’s mouth, and he made little panting noises as the buckle savaged his lips.
“Where is Angras?” asked the Priest, back to caressing Teacher’s cheek.
Slate’s mind raced, fear for Teacher threatening to override his sensibilities, but there was nothing he could do. He only had two options: let Teacher be tortured, giving Slate an opportunity to find Angras and wrest away the antidote to Teacher’s poison; the other choice was to tell all he knew, at which point they’d both be summarily killed, no questions asked. He remained silent.
“Tell us where he is,” the Priest said.
A croak as Slate tried to speak. He worked up some saliva and tried again. “Does go fuck yourself count as a location? That’d be the first place I’d look.”
The Priest tutted and nodded to the ghost, who put his weight against Teacher’s arm, pinning it to the wall. Pliers in hand, the Priest looked back to Slate. “Are you sure you don’t know where Angras is?”
He yearned to rip the wire from his head, twist it into knots, wrap it around the Priest’s throat in a garrote and choke him to death, but Slate’s hands remained bound to the chair, so he gritted his teeth and didn’t respond.
Another nod and the Priest closed the jaws of the pliers on Teacher’s fingernail. He began to inch the pliers back, its jaws still clamped. Teacher’s moans hit new heights, and he thrashed against his chains, but his arm remained still as the ghost applied more pressure. A sweat popped out on Slate’s skin, and he tasted blood. He’d bitten through his cheek.
Fallen Victors Page 22
