by Lee Ramsay
“Go, Tristan,” Jesta said, her face pressed against a gap between the iron bars. He responded with a frustrated snarl and strained against the metal until his muscles burned in protest. She slipped a hand through the grate and laid it over his forearm. “You can’t lift this, and they are coming. Take the dagger, take the torch, and go.”
The skin over his knuckle split as he smacked his fist against the bars in frustration. Blood left a dark smear on the metal. “They might kill you if they catch you, or they’ll drag you back to one of those chambers.”
“I will make them kill me before they put me back in chains.” Her fingers tightened around his wrist, and her lips pursed in a thin line as her blue eyes met his green. Then, with a complicated mix of emotions on her face, she turned and hurried off into the gloom.
Tristan lingered until she rounded a corner and disappeared. He tried to recall if there were any connecting halls, but his mind supplied him with nothing. With a frustrated curse and a scowl at the grate, he scooped up the dropped dagger and the torch and moved down the only path available to him – and froze as harsh, guttural laughter echoed from the direction she had gone.
Reason fled as she screamed, and he threw his shoulder against the iron grate. He dropped the knife and torch. Pain tore through his fatigued muscles as he tried once more to force the gate back up its guides. Jesta screamed once more, and the cry ended abruptly. Animal snarls slithered through the darkness for several heartbeats, then dropped to a rumbling growl.
Hot tears stung his eyes as he pressed his streaming brow against the cool metal. What little strength remained fled, leaving him weak and shaking.
Slow, measured footsteps padded toward him from the other side of the gate. Opening his eyes, he found a naked Dushken approaching him. The huntsman was younger than he; a patchy beard darkened the youth’s elongated jaw, and the supple brown skin over lean muscles bore few scars. None of the brands that Tristan had seen on older Dushken adorned the youth’s forehead.
Tristan backed away from the gate to avoid being grabbed through gaps in the iron bars. Fresh blood stained the Dushken’s long canines as he snarled a challenge and prowled along the gate. No doubt another huntsman was making its way to the hidden lever controlling this gate, and he knew he would stand little chance against the healthy youth.
He scooped up the torch and knife and ran, bare feet slapping the stone floor as he backtracked to where he and Jesta had left the bodies.
THE TORCH SPUTTERED as he reached the fifth turn, and by its light he suspected he must have gone the wrong way. When the pitch-soaked stump guttered and died at the seventh, he was sure of it. He tossed the spent wood aside as he strode toward the next intersection, and climbed a short flight of stairs before going right at the next passage. A lone, low-burning torch hissed at the far end, its waning light illuminating an open door.
Curious, he crept closer and peered inside. A tallow candle in a tin cup burned on a table, providing enough light to see shelving lining one wall. Metal flasks gleamed, and he caught a yeasty scent he recognized as the thick drink fed to the prisoners. Hidden by the shadows, he almost missed the slight figure in an oversized shirt stuffing flasks into a ragged burlap sack between his feet.
Or rather her feet, Tristan corrected himself. The Anahari – roughly his age, slender and with her hair cut short and uneven around her gaunt face – met his eyes with panicked startlement.
“It’s alright,” he said as the girl caught her lower lip between her teeth. He lifted his hands in a soothing gesture spoiled by his nakedness and stolen dagger and stepped into the room, but froze as she cringed away with her bag clutched to her chest. “I don’t want to hurt you—”
A howl cut the air from behind him. Cursing, he whirled and spied the loping figure of a huntsman coming down the hallway. The door slammed shut, and he braced it with his shoulder as he sought the bolt.
The wood bucked as the huntsman crashed against it, and the latch lifted as the young Dushken turned the handle. Sweat streamed down his cheeks as he seized the brass and fought to keep the latch set. He glanced toward the young woman and found her gone as though she had never existed. All that remained of her presence were gaps where flasks had been taken from the shelves and the tallow candle’s wavering flame.
Another crash jostled his hand from the door handle and distracted him from her disappearance. He slammed the door shut again, braced it with his foot, and struggled to keep the latch from turning with a one-handed grip. If he dropped the knife and the snarling huntsman broke through, he was finished.
I am finished anyway. He would not be able to hold the door for long and doubted the huntsman would wander away with prey on the other side of a poorly secured piece of wood.
The stout oak shuddered under a tremendous crash. Wood splintered as the handle twisted in the frame. Staggering into the table as the impact tossed him backward, his hand gripped the tallow candle and flung it into the huntsman’s face.
The Dushken howled and clawed his face as the molten wax in the tin cup struck his right eye.
Using what weight remained on his frame, Tristan lunged bowled the unbranded predator from his feet. The pair crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Desperation kept his hand tight on the dagger’s grip, and the point dug a furrow in the Dushken’s brown skin as he thrust the blade at the whelp’s gut.
Sharp teeth clacked together and sprayed bloody saliva as the warrior snapped in his face. Only a desperate jerk of the head kept the canines from sinking into his cheek.
Something primal shifted deep within the youth. Tightening his grip on the dagger, he met the hunter’s savagery with his own snarl and pumped the blade into his opponent’s side. Hot blood splashed his skin as he stabbed again, but the Dushken youth avoided the strike. The blade snapped as it jammed against the stone floor.
The huntsman heaved the youth aside, slamming him into the wall before battering his jaw with a savage punch.
Adrenaline and fury burning through his veins, he shook off the stunning impact and flung himself into the hunter with a desperate swing of his knife. The dagger’s broken point scraped across a lower rib as he buried it into the whelp’s belly as they crashed to the floor again. He summoned his flagging strength and shifted the angle, and leaned his weight on the pommel as he sought something vital. It would not be long before the healthier youth recovered from the minor injuries; when he did, the huntsman would slaughter him.
A hand gripped him by the throat and flung him aside with stunning strength. Numbness washed down his body as his back slammed against the table. The dagger clattered to the floor as his spasming fingers opened.
Urzgeth filled the doorway, eyes black beneath a lowered brow. The elder huntsman’s long coat flared around him as he took a long stride into the room. Tristan barely saw the fist that mashed his face and blasted him into black oblivion.
Chapter 35
Cold water splashed him, and he woke with a thrash that rattled the chains holding him. Finding his footing, he eased the pressure where the manacles bit into his wrists; his hands throbbed as blood rushed back into his fingers, and his shoulders ached from supporting his unconscious weight. Numerous abrasions burned from being cleaned, and his bruised jaw throbbed.
Urzgeth stood in front of him, an empty bucket in hand and annoyance on his gray-bearded face. Beside him was a much younger Dushken wearing nothing but simple, loose woolen pants. Angry red burns covered his forehead and cheek, and a swath of wool secured a pad over his right eye. Bandages wrapped his torso, bloody where Tristan’s dagger had bitten deep.
“I must say, I am surprised by how long it took for you to be captured,” Ankara’s said, her amused drawl drawing his attention. Dressed in a simple black robe trimmed with red and gold embroidery, the sorceress cradled a crystal goblet in her fingers as she lounged in a chair. Young men and women hung from their chained wrists around her, but he recognized none of them. “Your resilience and determination were quite im
pressive once you were cornered; Ruzrek may lose the vision in his right eye. Wherever did you find that candle?”
“Where am I?”
“I could not return you to the same room from which you escaped. The others would succumb to despair seeing you recaptured. It is such a waste of a crop when you have to harvest so many at once.” She sipped her wine, then cradled it in her hand while circling the lip with her fingertip. “I hope you did not think you were somehow unique. Orphans and unsanctioned births are far more common than I like. The irony, of course, is that I need both to sustain myself.”
Tristan said nothing as the weight of her words pressed down on him. As he had suspected, months had passed; how many seemed strangely unimportant. “Why am I still alive? You killed the others.”
“I killed no one. Not directly, at least,” Ankara said, setting her goblet on a small table beside her chair. The satin of her robe shimmered like moonlight on oil as she rose and sauntered toward him. “You and that girl were smart enough to evade my Dushken for several hours. Shall we see if you have brains enough to answer your question?”
“I have no interest in games.”
“You can play this one, or I can let Ruzrek satisfy himself on you. From what I gather, Urzgeth was forced to keep the boy from slaughtering you in his vexation.” Loose hair spilled down the slope of her breast as her shoulder rolled through a shrug. The hem of her robe whispered against the floor as she paced a slow circle around him, her fingernails hissing as they scraped across his skin. “It is your choice. I shall enjoy whatever you decide.”
“You once said what you take from us is sweeter during the hunt. You arranged for my manacles to be loose and for the guard to have the keys to free the others.”
“Quite right.”
“Allowing me to kill a guard for limited freedom strikes me as wasteful.”
“Prolonged use of the rishka degrades the viability of the person ingesting it. He outlived his usefulness.”
“Is that to be my fate?”
A throaty chuckle rose from Ankara’s throat as she leaned close, her palm sliding across his belly. “No. You are far too entertaining the way you are.”
His brows furrowed as he pulled away from her touch. “The Dushken are hunters. You’re using us to train them.”
“A fortunate benefit, but no,” the sorceress said as she folded her hands behind her back. Her emerald pendant glittered between her breasts as the neck of her robe gaped open. “You are too young to understand this, perhaps, but life is filled with amusing contradictions, conundrums, and ironies. To preserve my life, I must take it; like any farmer, I must cultivate what I need. Most of those I feed upon are a bit like the sweets my cooks make – tasty little morsels, but not sustaining. My meat and mead come from those with spirit, such as yourself. For the best yield, you must die young and with the fires of hope burning within you.”
“Then why set us free to let the Dushken kill us?”
“They do not kill. Well, not usually. A pity about the girl, by the way, but her death was needful to stoke the flames within you – and stoke them it did.”
Tristan glowered at her, the echoes of Jesta’s screams rising in his memory. “I hate you.”
“Good. Nurture that hate. May it burn hot, for however long you can stay alive.” She brushed past him to collect her goblet and took a deep drink. “I am sure you can appreciate the efficiency of this arrangement. I need the strongest of you, and I need to train the young Dushken. You will recall, I am sure, that I said there was always a chance for escape?”
He said nothing.
“I spent a long time building these dungeons – centuries in fact – but there was a warren of catacombs on this site long before I was born. Not even I have learned all Feinthresh’s secrets. People do vanish, escaping even the keen senses of my huntsmen.”
“Maybe they crawl into a corner and die.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps they become skillful enough to evade capture.” Ankara set her goblet on the table and slouched into her cushioned seat. Her fingers laced on her belly as she crossed her ankles. “Every once in a while, we find ones we thought were well and truly dead.”
“Why tell me this?”
“Every game has rules and stakes, and cannot be played unless the players know them. You, and others as well, will be released into the labyrinth. My young huntsmen will try to capture you. You can, of course, try to kill them – but they may forget themselves and do the same. Should you be caught, you will be brought back here to have your vitality harvested.”
Tristan’s eyes moved to the goblet, then back to her eyes as she stared at him. “Am I to assume you have not already done so?”
Ankara’s eyes narrowed with amusement. Her lips glistened as she dragged the tip of her tongue across them. “Where is the pleasure in taking from someone unaware?”
MONTHS PASSED – OR so Tristan assumed, based on the acquisition and healing of his wounds. With no sunlight or moonlight, he relied on his body’s natural processes to track time – an inaccurate method, but the only one available to him. Doing so, however, seemed pointless beyond occupying his mind.
Bizarre as he found it, there were benefits to the game Ankara now played. Though still irregular, food was more plentiful and filling than the yeast drink he had grown accustomed to. The labyrinthine dungeons – which proved far more extensive than he expected and covered several different levels – provided an illusion of freedom. When he could find a suitable place to hide, he could sleep lying down.
The negatives outweighed the positives, however. Dushken youths hunted the prisoners in packs of four. Prey often banded together in the hopes that numbers would give them a measure of protection. Doing so often proved a liability; the huntsmen possessed keen hearing and smell, which made tracking larger groups’ spoor through the maze easier.
Nearly as difficult as finding secure shelter in which to snatch a few moments of rest was the search for food. While of better quality and quantity, it was bland and unsatisfying. He recognized it as hardtack from Dougan's descriptions – a biscuit heavy with salt and spices that could last for years. Combined with the beery drink it was often stored with, the prisoners received enough nourishment to remain active.
The individuals selected for this game were natural survivors. The few times they bothered to speak before banding together or disappearing on their separate paths revealed them to be as angry and stubborn as he was. Better food, the opportunity to rest, and the remote possibility of escape fueled each of them. Being hunted by the Dushken and the terror of being recaptured made them vicious and opportunistic.
Just as Ankara planned.
DUSHKEN PREFERRED AMBUSHING hungry orphans and thus patrolled near the storage rooms. All too often they caught their prey, beating them unconscious before dragging them back to one of many chambers outfitted for Ankara and Sathra to feed on them.
Some prisoners could not bear the strain. When they broke, they were gutted and drained into metal tubs for Ankara or Sathra to bathe in and absorb the blood – rekindling the dread souring every heartbeat and breath the prisoners took and fanning their determination to escape the labyrinthine dungeon. Watching the corpses wither as their life forces drained away was terrifying enough; seeing the grand duchess cannibalize her victims as though consuming a fine meal twisted the vitals.
Too often, the prisoners shed their humanity once set loose. Naked and hungry, the stronger turned against the weaker. They laid traps for their own prey and brutalized their victims – and discarded them to purchase a few precious moments in which to escape when the huntsmen closed in.
To his shame, Tristan frequently turned his back and melted into the perpetual gloom. His last attempt to intervene had proven itself a ruse staged to capture the gullible. They abandoned him after a savage beating, leaving him for the Dushken.
Unwilling players in Ankara’s twisted game, they were becoming as callous as their captors. He grew wary of his fellow prisoners,
often wondering which were genuine or deceitful, and knew he must escape or lose himself to the barbarism he witnessed.
He was certain there was a way out. Ankara and Sathra did not appear from nothingness, and neither did the rishka-drugged servants who cleaned the prisoners and the pleasure chambers. The water the servants drew, heated, and mixed with lye soap came from somewhere, and waste had to be discarded.
Sathra had given him the clues he needed to plan his escape during his tour of the city, though he doubted such was her intent. Aqueducts higher in the mountains provided Feinthresh Castle with water; likewise, she claimed the castle used the same sewers serving the city. A connection between the dungeons, the aqueducts, and the sewer system was probable. If he could find where the water came in and where the waste went out, he might be able to escape.
While other prisoners sought nothing more than avoiding capture, Tristan methodically followed one wall and built a mental map of the convoluted tunnels. He did not worry about being killed, though a huntsman sometimes forgot himself and murdered a prisoner – usually when the prisoners ambushed their pursuers or fought back too hard.
Patient exploration told him the labyrinthine dungeons were vast. From their size, he reasoned they must be far beneath the castle itself and extend into the mountain against which the fortress stood. He had found four different levels – one below the floor on which Ankara’s pleasure chambers were kept and two more above. She had not lied about the maze of cells and passages being ancient. The dressed stone gave way to rougher cut rock in places, the granite stained red where iron sconces had rusted away; in others, the tunnels had collapsed.
Dangerous as they were in their own right, it was in these older areas where he felt safest. Far from the torches and equally far from food and drink sources, the Dushken hunted these corridors less often. He doubted the waterways he sought were in these areas, but he had less fear of capture despite his difficulty navigating the darkness or lighting purloined torches.
