Fallen Victors

by Jonathan Lenahan

  Alocar flexed, watching blue veins crisscross and fingers move, their connecting tendons jumping underneath the thin skin at the top of his hand, piano keys moving in concert with their tuning wires. He’d already made the decision, so why was it so hard to do?

  Crymson did her best to keep her eyes straight ahead. When she needed to see something in a different corner of the room – a rare event, admittedly, but staring at Alocar did grow tiresome – she turned her entire head, the better to avoid shifting her eyes, which felt like somebody had sprinkled them with salt, resistant to moving and painful when they did.

  For now, she contented herself with looking at Alocar, the loose flesh around his neck more noticeable the less water they were given. They both knew the ultimate outcome of their scenario, but delaying the inevitable was the favorite pastime of the doomed. Would it not be easier, quicker, to take the knives to their own throats, ending them now as they would soon end anyway?

  But she knew that she couldn’t do that; it wasn’t how Beatty had raised her. Take control of your life, fight the good fight, he had told her, and Crymson couldn’t shake that from her mind.

  Her very character, the thing she’d based her life around, was under attack; the foundation she’d built was threatening to break, and the only fix, the only way to retain her character, was to make the decision, remove her hand. She couldn’t let Alocar step in place for her, be the gallant savior to her distressed damsel. It went against everything she’d ever learned, the person at the center of her core, but still she made no move.

  The knife hovered in the air, unmoving, undropping, and her hand remained attached, Beatty’s words fast disappearing along with the ability to decide her own fate.

  Crymson spoke. “Have you ever held your hands out in front of you and thought about how much you take them for granted?” Alocar jerked from his knife, watching Crymson splay wide the fingers of her free hand.

  “With these marvelous little appendages, I can grasp my food, defend myself, write my name, hold another’s hand, even. What will I do when it’s gone?”

  Alocar found himself hating her, like the decision to lose her hand was already a foregone conclusion, like she was giving herself a chance to brag about being the brave one of the two, the leader, while he sat there, both his hands still attached, impotent to do anything about it.

  “You’re right,” Alocar said. “We do take them for granted. But you know what? This one isn’t all that useful anymore. Can’t hold a shield like it once did, and all I really need to do is sign papers anyway. What did that one philosopher say? Simplify, simplify.”

  Inside, bravery, indignity, or maybe a mixture of the two stirred within Alocar. He led, not Crymson. What kind of leader would he be if, when given the chance, he allowed her to take the fall? Why, he wouldn’t be a leader at all, but rather, a hypocrite, the lowest of the low. And so he opened his mouth, gathering courage from corners of his soul that he hadn’t swept in quite some time.

  Crymson lined the blade on her wrist and drew it back, more of a cleaver than a true knife. It came down, slowly, and then back up.

  “No!” Alocar brought his knife down on his left wrist with reckless abandon, moving before Crymson could strike. The knife chopped through bone at the base of his hand but failed to go all the way through. He felt no pain, just sensation.

  Still screaming, Alocar raised the knife and drove it down. Bone chips flew. It took three more furious blows, but his hand finally detached and fell, lying at his feet. The pain came, not waves of it but rather in singular form, like it’d always been part of him, obliterating everything else in the room. He burned with the desire to hold it to his chest, cradle it, and so he did, ripping the stump from the steel that had bound it.

  Something like anger permeated Crymson. Who was Alocar to take this decision from her? Who was he to sacrifice himself before her? She wanted to chop her own hand away, but what use was it now that it wouldn’t serve a purpose?

  An hour passed, and still nobody came. The scent of iron filled the air, and his stump became his life; Alocar began to fear that he’d bleed out before the Queen arrived.

  A door swung open. A woman – a nurse? – fell to her knees beside Alocar, heedless of the blood soaking into her skirts. She dabbed a small towel at his stump, each touch sending a flare of pain up his arm and throughout the rest of his body. He gritted his teeth, dearly wishing that he’d kept hold of his knife, even as the Priest removed Crymson’s from her hand and scooped Alocar’s from the floor.

  “Are you ready to tell me of what you know, or shall we go on?” The Queen looked down at him, confident in the position he’d won for her as a younger man.

  Alocar mustered all the coolness in his body. “We have nothing left to tell you.”

  The Queen nodded, something like resignation in her eyes. “Bind his wound,” she told the nurse. “Ensure that he lives to see another day. Tomorrow, I shall come again, and if you are not yet ready to tell me what I want, I will take your other hand, and then I will move to your friend’s. All you must do is tell me the rest, and I shall release you from your misery.”

  “Go to hell,” Alocar said, though he feared the effect was lost when he choked on the last word, pain spearing its way through his defenses.

  “Tomorrow,” the Queen said. “Tomorrow you might think differently.”

  Isaac

  Isaac stared at the fire. He hadn’t let it gutter since Kross had stored him here, days ago, and the stockpile of wood had steadily shrunk to the point that Isaac wasn’t sure it would last more than another couple hours.

  His stomach growled. Kross had delivered all his meals to him by hand, but Isaac hadn’t seen him since the previous day, and all that filled him was water from the pitcher left for him on the miniature table next to the bed.

  He flexed his magic, curious if it had reignited during his time spent recovering. Distantly, he felt something, a much more hopeful sign that anything he had felt on the road, but without sunlight in this blackened room, he wouldn’t be able to do anything other than call up a tiny spark, useless.

  Isaac wondered, not for the first time, if Kross had imprisoned near the others at all. He wouldn’t put it beyond the bounty hunter to have sheltered him in a hidey-hole, spirited away for his own personal use.

  Lying on the bed, Isaac nearly fell off when the door burst open and rebounded against the wall. Angras, scarred mask covering his face, stood in its frame. “Come on. We haven’t much time.”

  It was funny, even ironic, how much Whispers had taught Isaac, everything he needed to know learned in the space of five lifeless years, lessons received unwillingly in the form of beatings and uninterrupted silences, pain in exchange for knowledge.

  After Angras rescued Isaac from his cell, time multiplied, stitching itself together as the hours dragged. Tagging along behind Angras, he had settled into the quiet that had become his routine, a detail leftover from his imprisonment and his childhood, planning his next move as they walked.

  They stood in front of Grace’s body, blood leaking from her temple and onto the ground. Her parents stood near, both dead-faced, the brother not yet understanding, still playing in the yard.

  Isaac buried his face in his mentor’s cloak, sobs threating to rip him apart. “Why?” he managed to ask.

  His mentor pulled him close. “People, Isaac. People.”

  “But what did she do wrong?” He wiped his nose on the cloak’s black material.

  “Probably nothing, nothing to deserve this, anyway.” His mentor picked Isaac up from the ground, began walking back toward their house. “That’s why you have to protect those around you.”

  “With what?”

  His mentor blinked. “Magic, what else?”

  Waiting for Angras, Isaac entertained himself by bringing sparks to life on the tip of his thumb, his magic having come roaring back, returned as if never gone, rested from its exertion near Fayne. They’d walked through the setting sun, hiding in f
urtive corners and opening doors with a small key Angras had procured from seemingly nowhere, granting them access to parts of Tabernack’s castle that Isaac had felt sure were not meant for laymen’s eyes.

  Angras reappeared in the small doorway through which he’d left hours ago, mask on his face slanted, as if hastily tied without worry for its appearance. “I’ve gotten you to where you need to be, but the rest is up to you. I’m required elsewhere.”

  “Wait.” Isaac stood, his right hand afire and held before him, inches from Angras’s black-cloaked chest. “You’re the cause of all this, the reason why I’m here, why my friends are locked away in these dungeons.”

  “I am,” Angras agreed, his hand still on the door, evidently choosing to ignore Isaac’s unspoken threat.

  “Then I just want to make one thing clear.” Isaac forced himself to look into Angras’s eyes, just visible through the iron mask. “When this is all over, regardless of how it turns out, you make good on your word to the others. We’ve done our best to do as you’ve asked, and they’ve already lost enough.”

  “And if I say no?”

  Isaac looked meaningfully at his hand, and then back to Angras’s chest.

  “You realize that I could just lie, correct?”

  “I know.”

  Angras tilted his head, as if listening to another person, and then muttered, “Never.”

  To Isaac, he said, “Very well. I give you my word: no matter the outcome, I will do as you ask, to the letter.” He extended his hand.

  With a thought, Isaac extinguished the fire and turned away, ignoring the proffered hand.

  Taking a deep breath, Isaac silently recited the map on which Angras had coached him. He took a right, passing a set of torches illuminating nothing, and then another right, past a darkened corridor housing only a small painting of a yellowed boat, awash in frothy waters. A third right, past an empty cell, its bars somehow piteous, and then two lefts.

  A final right, and Isaac stood at the end of a stone-blocked hallway in front of a single door, weathered and beaten with the years. He inserted the small key Angras had left him and pushed the door open. A man in a red robe looked up, his face wrinkled in consternation. “What are you – ” he fell silent as Isaac held up a hand, newly afire, pieces of flame falling in front of his feet.

  “Take me inside. Now, please.”

  The man scowled “I’m a Priest,” he said, as if that explained something.

  Isaac pointed, and a finger of flame shot out, incinerating the bowl on which the Priest had just set his spoon. It caught fire and then went out, nothing but a small pile of ash in its place.

  “Now, please.”

  The Priest’s scowl deepened, but he shuffled his way to the door, unlocked it, and then stepped back, gesturing to Isaac, who shook his head.

  “After you.”

  Scowl threatening permanence, the Priest did as bidden. A wintry head lolled in a chair in the room’s center, and Crymson’s bruised face rose from her chest opposite the head. Her eyes widened.

  “Release them,” said Isaac, his fingers tugging at the material of his pants.

  “I can do no such thing! They are the Queen’s prisoners. She would have my head if I released them.”

  Isaac caught sight of Alocar’s stump, a red stain on the floor beneath him. “Better your head than the flesh melting from your bones.”

  The Priest made a face and then twisted to Crymson, a key in his hand. He unlocked her chains, and then bent to her feet. He did the same for Alocar, who stood, reaching for balance with a hand no longer there.

  “The others – where are they?”

  The Priest pointed to the back, where another door hid in the gloom.

  “Release them as well. Bring them here.”

  “You’ll regret this.”

  “Just keep moving,” he told the Priest. “Are you two okay?” Isaac winced as he said the words, but it was too late to stifle his voice.

  “We’re fine.” Alocar shuddered, but he visibly tightened his jaw and stood straight, his chest out.

  “What happened?” Crymson bent her arms, elbows cracking.

  “Kross took me somewhere different than the rest of you. Haven’t seen him in a few days. Angras rescued me from there, but he’s already gone again, somewhere in the city or maybe even this castle.”

  “Did you kill him?” Alocar asked.

  Isaac shook his head. “Still need him for the antidote and your family.”

  Teacher stumbled through the doorway, his eyes rimmed red, hands cradled to his chest. Isaac started forward, but stopped when he saw Slate approaching, a knife against his throat, the Priest close behind. Isaac cursed, knowing he should have followed and made sure of their safety before tending to Alocar and Crymson.

  “This is how things are going to work,” said the Priest, his face barely visible behind Slate’s capped shoulder. “You’re going to let me walk out of here, and when I get near the door, I’ll let your friend go, unharmed. Otherwise, I’m going to open his throat and let you dogs lap it up. Should be an easy choice.”

  Isaac glanced at the other three: Alocar with his stump, Teacher’s hands to his chest, his fingers lacerated and swollen, and Crymson’s bruised face – no help there. He put his arms out to the side and backed away, pushing the others behind him while the Priest maneuvered Slate around the room, knife held to his neck all the while.

  Slate looked at Teacher, his eyes glittering. He smirked, a small thing, the corner of his mouth tilting up at the edge with a hint of devil-may-care attitude, damning anybody who crossed his path.

  “Thought I told you to watch your back,” Slate said.

  “What?”

  Whirling, Slate put his fist through the Priest’s face, sending him reeling into the wall. The Priest, his knife on the floor, red with Slate’s blood, cowered, and Isaac moved to help, as did the others, but Slate fixed them with a murderous glare.

  They froze, and Slate grasped the Priest’s thin neck. Flexed. Bone and cartilage cracked, but Slate kept up the rotation, powerful muscles contracting, until the Priest’s neck twisted a full one-eighty, his scowl facing the heels of his feet. Slate grunted and let the corpse drop, falling to one knee alongside it, blood pouring from the wound inflicted by the priest’s knife.

  “Told that bastard I’d pay him back for Teacher.” The knife had missed his jugular, taking a deep gash from the left hand side of his neck, not immediately life-threatening, but Isaac feared that he would bleed out before he received help, drops of red already beginning to fill the cracks in the floor.

  “Cauterize it.” Crymson handed Isaac a thin piece of steel, jerked from her former chair. “It’s likely his only chance.”

  “But I can’t – ”

  “Yes, you can,” Alocar said. “It’s his only hope, and none of us can do it, not without tools.”

  Isaac sat back against his hamstrings, his mind racing. What if he made it worse, what if he killed Slate faster than he was due to die now? But one look at Slate, whose face was rapidly whitening, and Isaac knew that he had no choice. The gash was deep, but it wasn’t wide. He could do it.

  Concentrating, Isaac directed a thin stream of flame at the steel circlet. It grew warm beneath his fingertips, and then what he felt sure was hot, but it didn’t affect him.

  “Only put it on for a second – two, max.” Crymson gnashed her bottom lip with her teeth.

  “Do it,” said Slate, his voice weakening.

  Isaac nodded, and before his courage failed him, pushed the heated steel circlet into the wound on Slate’s neck. It smoked, and Slate writhed beneath Isaac’s hand, a soft moan escaping him and worming its way into the stone. The wound blackened and closed, and Slate sagged beneath him.

  “That’s going to need water, something clean,” Crymson said. “Infection is your primary concern, but you won’t bleed out, at least.”

  Shaking, Isaac threw the circlet to the opposite side of the room, where it clanged off the
wall. Slate relaxed his head. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “We need to get out of here, quickly, before somebody comes.” Crymson bent at the waist, ripping a piece of her dress and pressing it to Slate’s wound, gently but firmly.

  “Right, I brought the key for – ”

  “No,” Alocar said.

  “No?” Crymson let the question hang.

  “No. We’ve all lost too much. We end this now, here. Remember what the Queen said? How late was it when you came in here, Isaac?”

  “Um, probably late morning, which puts it about mid-afternoon by now. Why?”

  “We have enough time,” Alocar said. “Clear this body, spread the blood. The Queen is supposed to be visiting us again tonight, she told us that herself yesterday. This might be our only chance to take her out.”

  “All of you are wounded . . . ”

  “We are that, but the truest test of difficulty is perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.” Alocar looked at each of them. “I believe we can do this, I’m counting on each of you.”

  Slate coughed and stood, his face slowly filling with color. A breathy whisper. “Anything you can do, Old Man, I can do better.”

  Alocar looked as if he might grin, but he managed to contain it. Isaac nodded once, firmly.

  “Can you?” Crymson asked, looking at Alocar’s missing hand.

  Swiftly, Alocar drew the hand behind his back, though the motion caused him to wince. “My sword hand suffered no such malady. I can fight.”

  The hours passed, Alocar and Crymson reseated in their chairs, the steel circlets loosely bound about their wrists, one good yank from falling to pieces. The smell of blood was thick in the air, mixed with human waste, but thankfully it was a dungeon, so Isaac hoped that it was the norm, that the Queen would write off the smell and lack of light as part of the Priest’s tactics. It certainly smelled similar to what he remembered of Whispers.