by Lee Ramsay
THREE OF THE TWENTY-six prisoners chose to join him – two women and one man. It was a fool’s hope, and they all knew it. Tristan had little doubt about being allowed to free himself; there was no other explanation for the poorly closed manacle. He suspected he might be doing as Ankara wished but shrugged it off.
They stripped the body of the guard of what was useful. Jesta, a small woman of perhaps twenty years, took the guard’s shirt. Two years younger than he and still new to her imprisonment, Kayla slipped the emerald and black coat over her slender shoulders. Eosan, imprisoned nearly as long as Tristan, fumbled to lace the pants around his lean hips with fingers stiffed by damaged tendons in the wrists. The boots were too small for Tristan’s feet and too large for the others.
Tristan allowed them the clothes but took the guard’s short-bladed dagger for himself. The knife would be pathetic against a Dushken’s size and strength, but he hoped it was late in the evening or early enough in the morning that the huntsmen were elsewhere and sleeping.
It was a slim hope, and not one in which he held much faith.
Huddled by the chamber doors, they steeled their nerves and ignored the prisoners’ pleas not to do anything stupid. The door scraped open with a click of the latch and a squeak of the hinges. Dagger held at the ready, Tristan stopped the door with enough of a gap to slip through and caught his breath as he peered into the hall’s gloom.
A torch mounted in an iron sconce perhaps ten yards down the passage cast a circle of smoky golden light. The hall was deserted in the opposite direction as well. He beckoned the others to follow and pushed the door closed once they slipped into the hall.
Eosan’s eyed darted around. “I don’t like this. They come if we talk too loud, but nothing when you kill a guard?”
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Kayla whispered back.
Jesta snorted. “No, the damned door was left unlocked by mistake.”
“Should we go back?”
“This is our best chance. We may not get another,” Tristan said. “You want to go back, go. Otherwise, anyone remember how they were brought down here?”
The prisoners traded looks and shook their heads.
“Neither do I.”
“We can’t stand here,” Eosan muttered.
Lips pursed, Tristan motioned them to follow him. He moved as quickly as he dared, eyes straining against the gloom as he led them down the hallway toward the torch. The passage forked just beyond the sconce. The left-hand hall ran perhaps fifteen feet before turning into a short staircase; beyond the top step, the passage branched in three different directions. To the right, the hallway disappeared into the darkness with no other torches visible.
Eosan took the torch from the sconce with a scrape of wood and gave the three of them a defiant look. “He has the knife. It might not be much, but I want something to hit someone with.”
“You might get your chance if we don’t start moving.” Jesta’s gray-blue eyes rose to meet his. “Well? Which way?”
“Maybe we should go the other way,” Kayla said. “What if we’re only going deeper into the dungeons?”
“What if we’re not?” Eosan asked. “If we go the other way—”
Tristan waved them off and moved down the left-hand passage. Every moment they argued brought them closer to being caught. “This way.”
“Why this way?” Kayla asked.
“It leads up rather than down. Hush.”
Black stitches in the sutured wounds covering Tristan’s thighs stretched as he climbed the stairs. Freedom, however limited, fought off the weakness in his muscles. The hallway forked in three directions, but only the right-hand passage had a torch burning at its far end. The trio of escapees followed him down that corridor until it, too, branched – this time in two directions.
Sweat beaded Eosan’s brow as he held the torch away from his body. “Which way?”
“That way,” Jesta said, pointing at the torch that burned down the left passage.
Voice quivering, Kayla asked, “Why that way?”
Jesta regarded the girl with a look that questioned her intelligence. “You don’t light passages you’re not using.”
“What if there are prisoners down here other than us? Another room like the one we were in?”
“So what if there is?” Jesta asked with a shrug.
“We might be walking right toward Anasha or Sathra,” Eosan said.
Tristan blinked. As far as these three – and most other people in Anahar – were concerned, the woman they knew as the grand duchess was the scion of an ancient line. Something in his gut warned him against correcting their false belief. He cut them off with a wave of his hand. “We’re going this way.”
“Who in all hells put you in charge?” Eosan challenged.
“No one. You don’t want to come, fine. Find your own damned way.”
An irregularity in the passage revealed an arched doorway, and he slipped into the meager depression. Like the door in the chamber where they had been held, this one was thick oak banded in iron; however, it had a sliding wooden panel mounted at eye level. A body pressed up against his side, and he bit his tongue with startlement. Tension left his muscles as he glanced down at Jesta.
“Those two went the other way. I will stay with you.”
“Why?”
“Kayla was too noisy, and Eosan will draw attention with the torch.” She gestured at the door. “I doubt this is the way out. It looks like a cell door.”
“I’m looking for someone,” Tristan said as he slid the wooden cover on the grate to the side. As best as he could tell from the darkness inside, the cell was empty; no sound or stench of waste came from within. “If we can find him, our chances might improve.”
“A warrior?”
“A Hillffolk.” He grabbed her elbow and hurried down the hall, and peered down the passage that forked to the right. Another short staircase climbed upward, a torch burning in a sconce at the top.
“That might be useful if we run into any Dushken. Which we probably will,” Jesta said as she bent and scooped up a large rock.
The pair hurried up the stairs, slowing as their eyes cleared the top riser. A long, straight passage extended in front of them. A single torch burned halfway down its length a single torch burned, illuminating a junction with another passage.
“Kayla was right,” Jesta said as they hurried down the hall. “We’re likely headed right toward Sathra, Anasha, or that monster – the graybeard who likes beating you so much.”
“Urzgeth.” Back pressed against the dressed stone as they neared the intersection, Tristan peered around the corner. Irritated disappointment caused his shoulders to slump.
“What?” Jesta asked as he sagged against the wall. She pushed past him and stared at the staircase that led down perhaps fifty steps. A torchlit iron gate crossed the bottom riser. Beyond reach on the far side, a wooden lever emerged from the wall.
“It’s a maze. The bitch is toying with us.”
“The grand duchess likes her games.” The unevenly trimmed mass of her black hair brushed the shoulders of her stolen, overlong shirt as she shook her head. “If it’s a game, then there is a way to win. We have to figure how.”
“You sound certain.”
“If there’s a way in, there’s a way out. We can do this.”
Despite defeat’s crushing weight as he rested his hands on his knee, he clung to the thin thread of hope this Anahari woman held out. Ankara had told him there had been a handful of escapes.
A click echoed through the stillness, followed by metallic bangs and the shuddering grind of stone sliding across stone. The torch mounted beside the grate had been burning with an unwavering flame, but now it leaned toward them. An ululating cry shivered through the air, primal and savage as it echoed from the walls.
Tristan’s green eyes met Jesta’s gray-blue. “You were saying about a way to win?”
Chapter 34
Tristan and Jesta panted as they sprinted a s
hort distance down a long, dark corridor, as neither had the energy to sustain anything more. Torches in this part of the labyrinthine dungeons burned low or snuffed. They agreed, too, that running headlong through the dark passageways risked a fall down short stairways; they had already discovered a few of these, no more than three or four steps rising or falling in the passage floor. All too often, they found alcoves, side passages, and cell doors hidden in the shadows between the widely spaced torches.
Snarls often sounded in the distance, something between a wolf’s cry and the yowl of a mountain cat mixed with a human-like voice. Each time the sound reached them they froze, their hearts crashing against their ribs.
Neither knew where they were in relation to the chamber where they had been imprisoned. Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, but the walls seemed to change positions. Corridors they had just come down appeared to go in different directions when backtracked or met side passages that had not been present moments before.
Tristan found wooden levers at different places. Sometimes they opened iron grates barring their progress; other times, the levers triggered mechanisms hidden within the walls. Somewhere in the distance, a door would creak open on rusting hinges.
It was not apparent if there was a pattern to the steel grates, shifting walls, and levers. The Anahari woman used the burnt-out torch to mark low stones with a black smudge whenever they turned a corner. However, after several turns and reversals, they came to an intersection and found matching black streaks on each corner.
The torch clattered across the stones as Jesta threw it aside and dug her hands in her hair. “This is useless.”
Tristan leaned against the wall to catch his breath as she paced and swore. He waited until she calmed enough to collect the stump of wood and slid down the opposite wall to speak. “We haven’t been caught yet.”
“We’re going to be, though.”
“Probably, unless we can figure out the pattern.”
“What makes you think there is one?”
“My ward father is a well-educated man,” he said with some hesitation. It was not that he did not trust Jesta; she had been a prisoner for quite some time and had been beaten and raped as often as the others. However, he did not want to underestimate Ankara and could not dismiss suspicions that she might be an agent.
Jesta’s eyebrows knit as the silence between them grew. “So?”
“One of the things he always said is that randomness occurs naturally, but little is truly random with people. Our choices are decisions based on subconscious influences.”
“What in all hells does that mean?”
“It means we make choices we aren’t aware of. We have to figure out how Anasha thinks to puzzle out how she laid out the dungeon,” he said, stumbling over Ankara’s assumed name, “
Jesta said as she cast a doubtful look at their surroundings. “I don’t think she designed this place. Feinthresh Castle has stood for over a thousand years, and there was a fortress in its place before then. These dungeons may centuries old.”
“It’s possible. Or she may have built them herself.”
“That would take too long.”
“Would it?” he asked, gesturing at the stitched wounds on his body. He rose and offered her his hand. “We’ve seen and felt her draw life from our bodies. We know she can turn people into thralls. Why couldn’t she build these dungeons with magic as well?”
“If she did, we’re fucked,” Jesta said with a humorless laugh.
They passed more doors as they hurried through shadowy passages, many of which were unlocked. Most were empty cells, their floors covered by old straw that rasped beneath his bare feet; others were storerooms lined with shelves. While he searched these rooms Jesta remained near the door, listening for approaching footsteps with a thin gap between the stone frame and the wood.
It was time-consuming but necessary to check each door; they had found their way blocked too often to assume all led to cells. One such door hid a stairwell that led down; another opened into a small room filled with levers that, when pulled, triggered hidden mechanisms. Echoes of rattling chains made both Tristan and Jesta freeze, wondering if they had given away their location; when no guards or Dushken descended on them, they closed the door and hurried on.
“We’re going about this all wrong,” Tristan said as he leaned against a wall to rest. The solution to the maze was obvious, and he kicked himself for not seeing it sooner.
“If you have a better plan, I’m listening.”
“We need to follow one wall,” he said. Light from a torch burning at the intersection lit her skeptical frown. “Think about it. If you put your hand on the wall of your bedchamber and followed it, you would eventually find the door leading outside, right?”
“Or you’d find a staircase down into the cellar, or one going upstairs. We’ve already passed five stairways that go deeper. I hope you’re not suggesting we follow those down.” She placed her hands on her hips when he shook his head. “You realize we’ll probably run right into guards, or Dushken. We’ll be caught.”
“We might get lucky.”
“Our luck isn’t that good.”
JESTA TESTED THE HANDLE of a door as they passed by. The latch rattled without opening. A body slammed against the wood hard enough to rattle the door in its frame, and hands thrust through the narrow, barred window set high in the door. Filthy fingers with broken nails clawed at her throat as a gaunt, wild-eyed face surrounded by unkempt hair pressed against the bars. Drool ran from a gaping, toothless mouth that gibbered nonsense at them.
Though they suspected there must be other prisoners, this was the first they had seen – and the madwoman’s screaming babble from this one set off others in nearby cells. The young woman wiped bleeding scratches on her neck as they hurried down the passage’s center to avoid any other reaching hands.
Ankara had said Groush was being kept outside the city, but Tristan doubted her truthfulness. If the Hillffolk was somewhere in the dungeons, he hoped the bull would give some sound or call that he might recognize. He did not relish the thought of opening a cell door and confronting a madman while searching for him.
Their nerves wound ever tighter as time passed. Distant, animalistic calls told them Dushken were present, but they found no sign of the huntsmen. They did, however, run into five other prisoners as they rounded a corner. The man leading the small group swung what looked to be a table leg at Tristan’s head, which he instinctively blocked with his forearm.
A young woman caught the man’s wrist and raked their gaunt bodies with hard blue eyes. “Who in all hells are you?”
“I might ask you the same,” Jesta snapped as Tristan cradled his throbbing arm and chewed his lip to keep from shouting.
“Orphans?”
Jesta nodded. “You?”
“Some of us,” the woman said, glancing at the two younger women and a boy barely into his adolescent years. “A servant came to our cell and unlocked us. She never said a word, just opened the door. That must have been what, three days ago?”
“Four,” the boy said. “We’ve slept four times since she let us go.”
“That doesn’t mean much,” Tristan said as he rubbed his bruised forearm. “It could be three days or five. Hard to tell without the sun.”
“How did you escape?” the man with the club asked.
“I killed a guard and took his keys. Two others came with us, but they went their own way.”
“A man and a woman?” asked one of the girls. She frowned when Jesta nodded. “They’re dead. We passed them five or six turns ago. Their throats were torn out, like a dog had done it.”
Tristan frowned, trading a glance with Jesta. “We should go together. We’ll have a better chance if we’re in a group, should we run into guards.”
The older of the women pursed her lips. “How do we know you’re not a trick of Anasha’s to lure us into a trap?”
“How do we know you’re not?” Jesta snapped back.
&
nbsp; “Fair point,” the man with the club said. “You go your way, and we’ll go ours. If you’re truly like us, I wish you luck.”
“Don’t take the left-hand passage back that way, unless you want to see what’s left of the others,” one of the girls shuddered.
“IT’S NOT THEM,” TRISTAN said as he crouched beside a man lying in a pool of blood. Beside him lay the corpse of a woman younger than Kayla; her spine was visible through her shredded throat.
Distracted and half-listening, Jesta cast nervous looks around. “We shouldn’t have come this way. What if the Dushken come back?”
Dizziness swept him as he stood, and he leaned a hand against the wall to steady himself as his vision turned gray and fuzzy. “These bodies are cold, and the blood is thickening. They have moved on in search of fresh game.”
“How can you be certain?”
“There is no challenge here. Nothing to hunt.” He sucked a deep breath and swore. Grabbing her elbow, he hurried down the hall toward a distant torch.
“What?”
“Bait. Dushken are hunters,” the youth replied, dropping his grip on her arm and reaching for the burning brand as a howl sounded nearby. Sparks showered from the pitch-soaked wood as he jerked the torch from the sconce and held it out to her.
“What are you doing?”
“We need something more than a knife.”
She stepped closer and reached for the faggot, but stumbled as her bare foot pushed an odd-shaped stone into the floor. A mechanical click and rattle of chain reverberated from the close walls, and Tristan flung himself in the opposite direction as she fell backward. An iron grate dropped from a recess hidden in the ceiling and clanged against the stone floor a hand’s span from his foot. Dust showered from the rusted iron as the torch skittered from his hand in a shower of sparks.
The dagger clattered against the ground as Tristan scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the grate. Rough metal bit into his palms as he gripped the bars, but he ignored the pain as he heaved upward. His weak muscles shuddered as he tried to lift it enough for her to slither under, but the heavy weight refused to move. Adrenaline coursed through his body as twin howls rose through the lingering echoes.
