“I beat you both here,” Zyra said smugly. “Arrested less than an hour after we parted ways.”
Kaz frowned. “It was not a race.”
“I would say that, too, if I’d lost,” Zyra said. There was a sharp smile in her voice.
Roark turned to the Reaver’s shadowy form, intending to ask her how she’d gotten thrown in the prison ferry so fast, but when his eyes fell on her, the words lodged in his throat.
The Legion must have confiscated her armor as well, because she was dressed in a pair of Threadbare Breeches and a Threadbare Tunic. No hood. Snowy white ringlets spilled down around her heart-shaped face and over her midnight blue shoulders. His eyes traced the lines of her delicate throat, the bow of her lips, her pixielike nose, and the hint of green and purple in her mismatched eyes before rising to the pair of small recurved horns poking up from the top of her head.
Zyra caught him staring.
“They wouldn’t let me keep the hood,” she muttered. “Kaz promised not to spread the secret around.”
The Mighty Gourmet nodded solemnly. “Kaz swore it on every barrel of salt he’ll ever have.”
“Good,” Roark said, though he still doubted Zyra would have any trouble pushing around the other Trolls if they found out what she really looked like beneath her hood. Actually, now that he thought about it, she might have an easier time with the males. Roark realized he was scowling and gave himself a mental shake. He returned his attention to the now hoodless Reaver. “How did you manage to get thrown in here so quickly?”
“I followed a pair of Legionnaires for a while, nicking random bits and pieces from their Inventories until one of them noticed,” she said. “I was starting to think I’d pick their pockets empty before they caught on, but the softskulls finally realized it when I tried to lift one of their helmets off while he had it equipped.”
The memory of Danella’s body swaying from a noose flashed bright in Roark’s mind, and his scowl returned.
“What were you doing taking a chance like that?” he snapped. Then realizing what he was doing, he hurried to cover his concern. “You could’ve ruined the mission before it even started.”
Zyra laughed. “How? By being too good at pickpocketing and not getting arrested? I would’ve found another way down here if I had to stab someone.”
“Are you trying to get killed?”
“If I do, I’ll end up right back in the citadel,” she said.
“Not if you keep up this attitude once we get into the prison,” he insisted. “You heard Mai, there are no respawns for mobs inside those walls. Once we leave port, forever-death is on the line, and it’s crucial that we all remember that.”
“We were in more danger from roving gangs of chef’s minions,” Zyra said, gesturing with one claw-tipped hand at the glowering chef across the ship. “But I don’t see you lashing out at Kaz.”
“Kaz wasn’t directly targeting the soldiers. If they’d decided to kill you in the street—”
“They wouldn’t. It’s against their regulations, and a member of the Legion of Order lives for regulations.”
Roark ground his teeth, unable to make her understand the gravity of what she’d done.
Finally he said, “Before I came to Hearthworld, my... friend was hung for pickpocketing a captain of the guard.”
Zyra smirked. “Your friend must not have been as good a pickpocket as I am.”
“She was the best,” Roark snapped.
“Then I doubt they truly hung her for pickpocketing,” Zyra said, tipping one shoulder in a shrug. “Males are apt to do anything when their advances are rejected, especially males with the authority to declare that someone committed a crime.”
Roark opened his mouth to retort, but found himself at a loss as Zyra’s words sank in.
“But... but I asked the... The local jailor said...”
“Well, that settles it then, doesn’t it? Jailors never tell fibs,” Zyra said. Then with brutal clarity, she added, “Either your friend wasn’t the best pickpocket in your world, and she paid the price, or she was and they hung her for something else.”
Roark dropped back against the bulkhead, his mind reeling. If he hadn’t been sitting, he might’ve toppled over. It felt like the ground beneath his feet was shifting. He had to admit that it was possible Danella had humiliated the captain and been hung on trumped-up charges. The golden-haired thief had had a tongue sharper than a razor, capable of slicing open even the thickest of skin. More than once while they were together it had lashed out at Roark, and only his own rapier-fast wit had saved him. He could easily imagine a man with too much pride and power and too little intelligence taking offense to a harsh rejection.
“You can solve that mystery when you go back to your homeworld,” Zyra said in an overly glib voice. “It’ll be much easier without the rest of us getting in your way.”
The Floating Isle
ROARK SPENT THE REMAINING few hours to dawn pointedly ignoring the way Zyra was pointedly ignoring him. Using Danella to take a jab at his eventual return to Hearthworld was a low blow, whether she understood what Danella had meant to him or not. Worse—or equally as bad, he couldn’t decide which—was Zyra’s recklessness with her own life. They were walking willingly into a prison where death was forever, and she refused to take it seriously.
If the Reaver Champion wanted a reason he couldn’t take her back to Traisbin with him, it was that. In a land like Korvo, with a man like Marek at the helm, she wouldn’t make it a month. She would say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong set of ears, and then she would be snatched away, her feet dangling as Danella’s had—and that was the best-case scenario. The Tyrant King and his ilk had worse tortures than that for those who truly earned the ire of the Empire. No, better for her to hate him and stay.
Kaz tried to draw Roark and Zyra both into conversation several times, but received only minimal, monosyllabic answers that led nowhere. Eventually, the happy-go-lucky Knight Thursr gave up and settled into the tense silence. The three of them spent the rest of the night brooding alone together.
Just as the sky outside the portholes began to lighten enough to see the underside of the dock they were moored to, a cry went up on deck.
“Prepare for launch!”
Moments later, there was a great wooden scraping. The gangplank being pulled up.
“Casters at the ready!” The voice paused. “Depart!”
Multicolored lights flashed, the spells momentarily shifting the glow coming through the portholes into the hold from gray to flares of pink, purple, blue, orange, and red. The hull gave a great lurch, Roark rocking with the movement, and began its journey.
Though the ferry was a great, lumbering beast of a ship, whatever magic powered it kept it moving through the waves at a fast clip. Roark pressed his face up to the porthole, watching as the vessel sailed out of the harbor and into the open ocean. Sprays of salty water splashed up into his face, matting his shaggy hair to his skin, but the novelty of traveling by sea was too delightful for him to be angry. Though it was hard to forget that he was in a prison transport, on his way to incarceration, this was a dream. In no time at all, his black mood had washed away.
The farther from land they got, the higher and harsher the waves grew, until the ocean spray was a near constant thing.
A small claw-tipped hand grabbed Roark’s shoulder and jerked him away from the porthole. A moment later, Zyra was emptying her stomach out into the waves. Roark cringed as at least half of it came splashing back in to soak her.
“Shut up,” she snapped at Roark and Kaz when she dropped back into a sitting position. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach and her face was ashen beneath its deep midnight color. She dripped, shivered, and dripped some more. Even her horns seemed wilted and sick. “Don’t say a word or I’ll Death Scratch your tongues out. If you think I can’t like this, just try me.”
Kaz turned bewildered eyes at Roark and opened his mouth. Roark was certain the Mighty Gour
met was going to say that he hadn’t said anything, but instead Kaz sat down beside Zyra and began to gently pet her dripping hair like someone trying to soothe a feral cat.
Roark got out a Sufficient Healing potion for Kaz. He wanted to be ready for when Zyra made good on her threat.
But little by little, the Reaver Champion relaxed into the Knight Thursr’s side. Until eventually she put her head down on his tree-trunk-sized thigh and closed her eyes. If he hadn’t been certain by now that Trolls couldn’t sleep, Roark would have wondered if she had drifted off.
Seeing Zyra sick and vulnerable did strange things to Roark’s insides. She looked tiny just then, fragile. Some of it could have been juxtaposition with the enormous brute petting her with a hand big enough to crush her head and most of her shoulders in one squeeze, but most of it was her defenselessness. Roark stifled a smirk. Zyra hated even the appearance of weakness; if she knew seeing her like this made his urge to protect her almost overwhelming, she really would kill him.
And yet, as thorny as she could be, Kaz’s simple kindness had calmed her enough that she’d stopped being sick and threatening to poison them. Roark would have given a lot to have the Knight Thursr’s instincts when dealing with Zyra. Maybe then he wouldn’t end up fuming every time he spoke to her.
“That’s it!” a shout arose on the opposite side of the ship. “I see it!”
Bilgewater splashed as most of the prisoners on Roark’s side of the ship leapt down into the muck and sloshed across to jostle for space at a porthole. Exclamations of shock filled the hold, and the sound of pouring water roared through the space as if they were trapped inside a waterfall. There were authoritative shouts up on deck, but the words were lost in the noise below.
Though he was fairly certain no one was paying attention to them, Roark leaned toward Kaz and lowered his voice until just the two of them—and Zyra, if she was awake—would be able to hear it over the din.
“I’m going to go scout for possible escape routes. I’ll be right back.”
Kaz’s eyes went wide, not with fear, but admonition. He put a huge finger to his lips, then pointed down at Zyra. Roark raised his hands in surrender and nodded.
As Roark slipped down the curve of the wooden hill they’d climbed up to their dry spot, the forward momentum of the ship changed. The horizontal axis tilted without warning, and he fell over backward into the stinking sludge. He scrabbled for purchase on the steep sides of the hull, but a strange weight seemed to be pressing him back into the water. It was as if he’d suddenly gained a hundred pounds.
With some effort, Roark managed to jam his fingers into a crack between planks and claw his way to his feet. The climb up the opposite side of the hull wasn’t much easier, but finally he made it to a crowded porthole. With his Jotnar size, shoving his way to the circle of daylight was less of a chore. He elbowed one persistent opponent aside, then looked out.
At first, Roark couldn’t understand what he was seeing. White water churned on the surface of the ocean, and foam capped the waves. Then he spotted a dark shape covering much of the water. A shadow. But the shadow was growing smaller, and the waves getting farther and farther below.
The ship was lifting off. The churning water was being shed by its enormous frame as it pulled itself up out of the ocean. And that diminishing shadow must be...
Roark followed the shadow’s trajectory upward, and his jaw dropped.
The island glistened and sparkled like a pale gray-green ice gem in the early morning sunlight, a shockingly beautiful form in spite of its grim function. The entire structure was shaped like a bottom-heavy diamond, its lower point much wider and longer than its upper. The ferry was still at least a half-mile away, cutting a diagonal from the ocean to the island, but Roark could see tiny figures moving around inside the sea ice, distorted by the glassy exterior. The figures stayed on an invisible horizontal plane, and after a few seconds’ study, Roark realized none of them strayed outside of a small area to either side. He saw a few leaning against invisible walls.
That fit with the layout Mai had given Kaz—heavily occupied cells on multiple floors. Roark scanned the shiny gray-green exterior of the prison for openings. Sewage or trash dumps, hidden exits, anything that would get them from locked up inside to free and clear outside once they had Variok.
To the naked eye, the external, icy walls of the prison were smooth and featureless. Though he was forced to admit that could just be a trick of the ice.
The ferry closed in on a jetty poking out into the open air, where a multitude of olms in Legion of Order plate mail and pristine tabards stood waiting, their weapons at the ready. The guards. One of obviously lower rank heaved a great rope at the ferry. Roark watched it sail high above the portholes. Someone on deck must have caught it, because a few moments later, they were being reeled in toward this strange sky dock.
Roark searched the crown of the floating island for potential escape routes, but didn’t even see a single hiding place if they did manage to make it out of the prison. It was nothing but more gray-green ice, though this in a much smaller, more jagged cone than the bottom half of the diamond. The same thin, white sea-foam snow that had been covering every structure in Frostrime was dusted across the top of the island, a sharp contrast to the guards swarming toward the dock.
“’Ere now, give us a look,” growled some impatient bellend behind Roark, trying to shove him aside.
“Pick another window, mate,” Roark said, dropping his Illusion Cloak. It was going to expire soon anyway, and if Mai was right, Chillend had anti-glamour spells that would disrupt it. He whirled on the pushy rog, serrated teeth bared, twisted, leathery wings opening instinctively for maximum intimidation.
The rog stumbled backward and landed on his ass in the putrid bilgewater.
[Congratulations, you have unlocked Intimidation Level 1. With Intimidation, beings with an Intelligence of less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer Fright for 30 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need ...]
Roark blinked away the notice, realizing as he did that across the ship, Zyra was sitting up. Seeing she had his attention, the hoodless Reaver made weak applauding motions cheering on his outburst.
Pleased in spite of himself, Roark dipped his head in a fractional bow, then turned back to the porthole. One last glance outside to make sure he hadn’t missed anything obvious that they could use during their getaway, then he left the circle of light behind. He splashed down into the filth, the cowed rog scrambling out of his way, then returned to Kaz and Zyra.
“We’ll have to find the way out once we’re inside. If there are any tunnels, hatches, or exits, they’re as clear as the walls and damn near invisible from out here.” He nodded at Zyra. “How are you feeling?”
“Like used ale,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “But not quite as likely to vomit on myself as before.”
A boom echoed through the hold, startling them all, and the ferry lurched to a stop. A moment later, the grate opened in the deck and a thick barred ladder dropped down, a set of iron hooks at the top holding it in place.
“Any prisoner who doesn’t come willingly will have his or her fine doubled,” a bored voice shouted down matter-of-factly.
Slowly and with no small amount of grumbling, the other prisoners drifted toward the exit. The first to arrive, a pale elf missing the pointed half of his left ear, begrudgingly stepped up and began to climb.
Roark looked from Kaz to Zyra. In both faces, he saw a reflection of his own grim determination. In a few short minutes, they would be under lock and key in the one place in Hearthworld where mobs died forever-death. If something happened and Roark couldn’t get them free again, failing the jailbreak quest and not founding a settlement would be the least of their worries.
Roark set his shoulders and hoped he looked more confident than he felt.
“Let’s go to prison,” he said.
Blankets, Blankets, Blankets
ROARK CLIMBED OUT O
NTO the deck of the prison ferry, the bright sunlight that glinted off the ice island piercing his eyes after so many hours in the near lightless dark below. Wind howled in his ears and tugged at his wings, bringing with it the hissing, scratching sound of tiny ice crystals blowing across the wooden deck.
Kaz stumbled and would have fallen if Roark hadn’t grabbed him under one massive arm and righted him. As it was, they nearly both went down under the Knight Thursr’s weight.
“It is so bright out here,” Kaz said, rubbing his onyx eyes with his enormous fists. The Mighty Gourmet tried squinting, then closing one eye while looking around with the other. “Kaz can hardly see anything.”
“Tell me about it, big guy.” They turned to find Zyra standing behind them, both arms thrown over her face to shade her mismatched eyes. “Is this what you hoodless Trolls have to deal with all the time?”
“You get used to it,” Roark said.
The hoodless Reaver didn’t look convinced.
“Prisoners disembark first,” a Legionnaire shouted above the wind. “Move to the immediate right at the bottom of the gangplank and form two orderly lines before the Intake Curator. Visitors, wait until the prisoners have been received before disembarking and seeing the Visitation Curator.”
Falling silent, they joined the slow shuffle of prisoners toward the gangplank. Several were already shivering in their threadbare rags, Kaz and Zyra included. Even Roark was forced to admit to a slight chill. They would be out of the wind once they made it inside, but he imagined the cold of the Permanent Hoarfrost would slowly seep into even the hardiest of bodies. It was no wonder Mai’s husband had succumbed.
The gangplank squealed and shifted treacherously beneath their feet. Far, far below, Roark could see the choppy waves of the ocean foaming like tiny snowcaps on distant mountains. Would it be possible to make a run for the edge of the island and leap off if they managed to escape the prison with Variok? That brought up another question they would need answered before making their jailbreak: Could Variok swim?
Troll Nation Page 12
