by C. Ellsworth
Addy opened her mouth to argue, but she snapped her mouth shut, coming to a stop on the trail. Olgana had paused to exchange words with another woman.
Jess leaned in to speak softly in Addy’s ear. “That’s Gelti. She’s in charge of the laundry.”
They were now standing before a large cylindrical vat, nearly a pace across, two feet high, and made from dark stone. All around it knelt women plunging furs and woolens into steaming, murky water and then working them over makeshift washboards made of wood and bone. The air was damp and smelled of wet fur.
Olgana muttered a curt word, and then walked on, leaving them alone with Gelti. The aged skeg then prodded them toward the vat with a finger no less gnarled than Olgana’s cane, her pale topknot bobbing from the right side of her head. Curious. Olgana’s topknot had been on the left side of her head, and Valenda’s on the top. And all the other women at the vat wore there’s on the right like Gelti. Was that some kind of indication of their standing in the clan? Was that something Addy could use to her advantage? Aeric had taught them to know their enemy, but she would have to ask Jess about that later; there were more important things to discuss at the moment.
Gelti pushed them to kneel before the stone pool, where baskets of clothing awaited their attention. Jess took up a furred cloak and pushed it into the hot water, motioning Addy to do the same. Then she proceeded to demonstrate the entire process of doing skeg laundry, which really wasn’t any different than Addy had done back home. But Addy couldn’t waste time doing laundry! Ryan and Traizen were out there looking for her—they were!—and she had to find a way to escape. Spirelight help her!
Addy picked up what appeared to be a pair of woolen underclothes, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “Where are all the . . . black uniforms?”
Jess smiled. “The dolinatis do not require cleaning.”
Addy frowned.
“Dolinatis,” Jess said again. “It’s what they call the clothing that they wear when they go out into the Waste and into battle. Each outfit is made from a special cloth that does not wear from normal use, and no stain can penetrate its weave. Not wine or water, or even dust.”
“Or blood.” Addy swallowed. When the skeg attackers at the barracks bled, those red drops had slid down the fabric like raindrops on glass.
Jess nodded, never pausing as she worked the cloak against her stone washboard. “The men here see many fights. And many of those fights are against each other.”
“They fight each other?” Addy worked the underclothes vigorously. Bloodstains never came out easily. What would be the punishment for wearing a hole in a loincloth?
“They are a proud people. Insults are often answered with challenges, many ending in the death of the challenger.”
Addy shook her head. When Ferril or Wilden got rowdy in their drunken stupors, they were simply thrown in the dungeon for the night. They wouldn’t have lasted five heartbeats in this place. “Why have you stayed, Jess? There must have been . . . opportunities to escape?”
Jess fell silent, her gaze moving around the circle of skeg women before falling to her lap, the soaked cloak in her hands momentarily forgotten. “As I said, it’s . . . not as simple as you think, Addy.” There was a tightness around her eyes. What wasn’t she saying?
Addy sighed. “You were trained to fight to your last breath before submitting to this, Jess. So why do you sit here with these skeg . . . animals, while I’m trying to think of a way to get out of here? Surely no risk is too great when compared to a life of . . .” She raised the sodden smallclothes for example. “This!”
Jess’s eyes took on a pitying light. Did she think Addy was too dim to understand what her situation was? Why didn’t she just explain? “I tried, Addy.” Jess heaved a sigh. “For days I watched and planned and schemed. And I finally got my chance.”
“What happened?” By the pained expression on Jess’s face, it must have been terrible. But if Addy was to find a way to get free, she had to know everything she could about this place and what dangers there were.
“They caught me trying to sneak out one night.” Jess’s eyes were teary. She turned her back to Addy and lowered her fur top down to her waist. Addy gasped. Crisscrossing Jess’s back were a dozen or so pink scars. How could they have done that to her? They weren’t animals; animals never resorted to torture!
Jess blushed again, her gaze darting to the nearby skeg, but the women seemed to be ignoring them. She pulled her fur top back over her shoulders before swallowing hard and wiping at her eyes. “The scars are just part of what they did. I’ll spare you the details. It’s difficult to talk about. Needless to say, I dared not try again.” Her voice cracked. “They didn’t train us for that, Addy, the torture, the . . . mind games. They didn’t train us for any of that.” Her expression became urgent. “There is no hope of escape here, Addy! They know your every move. I only wish the others here from town had shown me that when I first came. It would have saved me the pain . . . and shame. At least I can warn you, Addy. They will break you one way or another. So why make the short time we have left difficult?”
Shame? Pain? Others? There were so many questions, but she picked one at random and spoke in hushed, urgent tones. “There are others here, Jess? Others from town? Right now?”
Jess nodded. “Do you remember Deirdre Thatcher, the woodsman’s daughter who disappeared a few years ago?”
“Deirdre is here? They found only her tattered clothes. Everyone thought a bear got a hold of her. I can’t believe she’s here!”
Jess continued. “And Holley Everston, Old Dod’s niece? We were just children when she was taken, and she just nineteen.”
Addy glanced around. Would she recognize them if she saw them here among skeg?
Picking up the sodden cloak once again, Jess fed it between two wooden cylinders that were pressed together with leather cords. Then she worked a handle at one end, and the water was pressed out as the cloak went through. “And there are others as well.” She tossed the cloak onto a pile, where another skeg woman was pulling items to be hung for drying. Then she picked up another fur-lined skin that resembled a shirt. “Leeda Clemens, Vanesia Smith, and Lexy Drassen. They are here as well.”
“And they’re all right?” Addy frowned at the garment in her hands. There was probably a hole in it by now, but she stopped anyway and fed the thing into the wringer without inspection, then tossed it into the pile. Good enough. She wasn’t going to be around to face the wrath of its owner anyway.
Jess glanced at the garment, but if she had noticed any holes or stains, she didn’t comment. “Not all who were taken are still here. Some chose to . . . end their own lives before . . . submitting.”
Submitting? “Jess, have they . . . ?”
Jess’s expression turned pained, and tears quickly filled her eyes. There was no need to say more. “I was not so lucky as you—” Her voice wavered, barely audible. “—if being gifted to the mighty kha’lat, as you are, could be called lucky.”
At Addy’s scowl, Jess continued, still casting sparing glances out of the corner of her eye at the nearby skeg. One of them looked up at the mention of the kha’lat, but it was the briefest of looks and no more. “They gave me to an older man named Togrin, and while he is not gentle, by any means, he does not strike me without reason as I’ve seen others do. I think he has even grown . . . fond of me.”
Addy’s stomach churned. “I’m so sorry, Jess.” She put a gentle hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry.” Skeg really were as mad as the tales told. She had to escape. She had to find a way! Now to work out the how of it.
“I loved him.” Jess sniffed and wiped again at her eyes. “Nathan, I mean.”
Addy’s chest tightened. Her stomach was beginning to ache with all the heart-wrenching going on today.
“I don’t know how it happened, the two of us.” A tear rolled down Jess’s cheek. “I suppose six months in the barracks with someone, spending every waking hour with them, offers plenty of opportunity for tha
t sort of thing.”
Addy reached over and gave Jess’s hand a gentle squeeze. Jess gave a soft smile. “I miss him so much, and I am a fool for it.”
“No, Jess.” It was Addy’s turn to wipe away a tear. She hadn’t spent as much time at the barracks with Ryan as Jess had with Nathan, but oh, how good it would be to see him again! “Not foolish at all.”
Addy sniffed and cleared her throat. No more tears! It was time to get back to business—time to learn more about the enemy. “The children here.” She trained her eyes outward toward the pond. “They seem mostly normal. Their skin is like ours. Only their eyes say they were born skeg. How are they so healthy? And why does their skin change color as they get older?”
Clearing her own throat, Jess worked the stone washboard vigorously, even angrily, perhaps. “If you ask the elders here, they will say it is a blessing of the Lord, their Nier’d’ka. It is why they live longer and healthier than you—we—do back in town. But I think it has more to do with the water here. It is far purer and cleaner than the water in town and probably has some sort of medicinal properties.”
Addy’s eyes rose to the ceiling, where water still trickled down from the opening and into the pond below. Jess lookup up as well. “No, we don’t drink from the pond, or from the stream.” She nodded toward a large metal container a little ways from the pond. It was barrel-shaped—as tall as two men and just as wide—with pipes extending down from it into the ground. A woman stood at the base of it, filling a bucket from a spout. “The skeg learned centuries ago that it is safe to bathe and do laundry in the water from the pond and stream, but the cooking and drinking must be done only with the water from the asterin—or water basin, I suppose we’d call it. It’s blessed by Nier’d’ka, they say. No one is quite sure how it fills itself, but it never empties.”
Addy eyed the basin in the distance. Perhaps if she could get some kind of poison into the tank . . . But then there were the children. Yes, they were skeg children, but they were also innocent. And no matter what the stories told, skeg weren’t born with knives in their hands and blood as their first meal. Besides, how would she find poison in this place?
Abruptly, Gelti was there with her gnarled finger pointing and jabbing. The other women broke into laughter, while Jess and Addy both dropped into silence, returning to the task before them.
Addy kept her face down and her mouth quiet for a time, but no way was she going to spend these final days—these final hours—washing soiled smallclothes.
Chapter 32
Addy blinked. A bit of dust had fallen into her eye from somewhere above. Another tremor. How many had there been? She had stopped counting.
She rolled over onto her side, wincing as her aching muscles protested. After Gelti had worked them at the laundry until their hands were raw, Olgana had returned and set them to beating rugs until night had fallen. Horrid woman! Whenever Addy would hit the carpets in a way that displeased Olgana, she would strike Addy with that dreadful cane. Addy’s backside was likely black and blue by now.
Tremors aside, the night was calm in the vast cavern. On occasion, the moon would somehow peek through the clouds, shining its light through the open roof. And when it did, it sent shimmers of soft light sparkling over the walls. It was a sight to behold, but there was no time to sit and stare. I’m getting free, and then I’m going to the Tower to stop all this madness.
And once home, she would sleep for a year!
Getting out of the cage wasn’t a problem—Ryan had showed her how to pick a lock—but it was what to do after that that had her stomach churning! She needed a plan, one that didn’t end in her waking every skeg in that place.
Despite the vastness of the cavern, it would be far too easy to accidentally stumble across any number of skeg while they slept. There were so many of them, and they had no real need of shelter or houses of their own, when the rocky ceiling already kept them from the elements. They simply laid out their blankets and their cookware and their other possessions on the ground in their allotted areas.
And even if she did manage to avoid stepping on a slumbering skeg, which way led out? There had to be a tunnel somewhere, or perhaps multiple tunnels, but there were none to be seen where she’d gone so far—no staircases, no ladders, and no ropes, so there had to be a tunnel.
There was a faint sound like a muffled cry somewhere in the distance. Addy held her breath and listened, but only quiet followed. Probably nothing. If I can find Jess—and convince her to help—she’ll probably know the way out. I just need to find her and wake her without alerting anyone else. But where did Jess sleep? With her owner, no doubt. Owner . . . How Addy would love to get the opportunity to meet that one with a dagger in her hand.
A second cry pierced the night air, this one louder, unmistakable. Addy leaped to her feet, crouching at the ready before the cage door. Her heart thrummed in her ears. What was happening? If her friends had finally come to rescue her, she had to be ready to flee. And fight.
The small, crude hairpin that she had found near the laundry slipped easily into the lock, but after a few frantic moments twisting it this way and that—as Ryan had taught her—it remained closed. Why wasn’t it working? She knew how to do this!
More cries broke out, followed by the sounds of fighting, the clang of metal on metal, and the sickening thuds of metal against flesh, angry shouts, and the shouts of the dying. Focus! Her hands shook so hard she could barely hold the pin. She prodded the keyhole again. Twist, turn, push, twist . . . click. She did it!
Addy cast a quick glance into the surrounding darkness. No one was nearby. She pushed open the gate, wincing as the hinges screeched in protest. Then she stepped outside, heart pounding fiercely beneath her rib cage. She should probably close the gate, make it less obvious she had gotten free. She turned back around.
Footsteps!
Out of the corner of her eye, a man was emerging from the shadows. She whirled about, fist flying, and with an audible crack!, her knuckles smashed into the man’s nose. The blow sent him rocking back on his heels, his hands rising to clutch at his face.
A moan escaped his lips, and Addy gasped. “Ryan? Ryan!” She stepped quickly forward and threw her arms around him. He smelled of smoke and earth and, well, Ryan. His strong arms embraced her, and his chest was hot against hers. Could she stay here like this? For just a moment? “Oh!”
Addy pulled back to hold him at arm’s length. “Your nose! I’m so sorry! I thought . . . let me see.”
“Hello to you too.” Ryan wore a pained grimace. “Ow! No! Don’t . . . don’t touch it. It’s fine.”
Addy stepped back with an inspecting eye. There was a bit of swelling around the bridge of his nose, and possibly some bruising to come, but it didn’t look like anything was broken.
Ryan gently touched his swelling nose. “I don’t think the story books ever told of a rescue going quite like this.” He gave a soft chuckle.
Addy smiled. Then her heart clenched, and her smile turned into a frown. Did he know? “Ryan . . . Karine was—”
“I know, Addy.” Ryan’s brows dipped. “We . . . found her. There was nothing we could do.”
Addy nodded, a sour pit forming in her stomach.
Hastened footsteps sounded from down the path. Had the skeg come to check on her? No, it wasn’t skeg. Jess emerged from the shadows, and in her arms was a bundle, the ends of Addy’s daggers plainly visible. Jess, you wonderful girl!
There was another figure behind her, tall and—
Addy gasped. “Aeric?” Her throat grew tight. It was Aeric, and that embroidered, yellow sun on his vest had never looked so good! How could she ever have been angry with him? Blessed Spirelight, she was getting out of here! “How did you find me?”
Aeric, sporting a bleeding gash down the side of his temple, stood with a sword in his hand—a sword that was nearly as tall as he was. “You’ll think me a fool.” His voice was soft and deadly, like a sword leaving its sheath. “I had a . . . dream, a dream a
bout your mother. She told me you needed my help and where I could find you. It was crazy, but I knew it for truth. We rode the bulls hard. We rode them until they refused to take another step. But when we got to that place, the place from my dream, all we found was a burned-down shack. It was only by the Tower’s luck that we picked up your trail.”
Addy gave a small smile. “I . . . I don’t think you’re a fool at all.” If Mama could visit her dreams, why not Aeric’s? “You said ‘we’? How many did you bring?” Hopefully it was the entire barracks! Kergen and his filthy skeg would answer for everything they had done.
Ryan began to pace, his long sword in hand. “Not enough, Addy. We’ll be lucky to make it back to the tunnel before we’re all cut down.”
Aeric shot him a dangerous glare, but he said nothing and turned his eyes back to her. “I brought three others. Brenly, Ulon, and Caster. Any more would have slowed us down and drawn the eyes of every skeg in the Waste. They’re out there creating a distraction for us right now, so sitting here chatting all night will only make their deaths pointless.”
Brenly, Ulon, and Castor. Addy had trained against them, all of them experienced and capable, but there were only three of them. What hope did three have against hundreds? What hope did any of them have, now that the skeg were aware? She took her daggers from Jess and sheathed them at her hips. “I’m ready.” She heaved a sigh, her stomach twisting. “Very ready.”
Aeric gave a quick nod, turned, then charged off down the path, leading them toward the commotion that grew louder by the moment. As they ran, Addy gave a small, reassuring smile to Jess beside her, but the woman merely looked at her, eyes filled with worry. We’ll get out of here, Jess! I promise! Wait. Someone was missing. “Where’s Traizen?” Her voice was pitched low, in case there were skeg nearby.
Ryan frowned. “He ran.”
Addy nearly stumbled. “He ran?” Ryan nodded and her heart sank. How could he do this? Had she been wrong to believe that the two times he’d come to the Waste before were just a misunderstanding? Should she worry for his safety or curse him for being a fool coward? No time now.
