Ivar's Escape (Assassins of Gravas Book 2)

by N. J. Walters

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2020 N.J. Walters

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-0243-8

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Audrey Bobak

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  Thank you to my amazing family. Your love and support means everything to me.

  Thank you to all the readers who enjoyed the Marks Mercenaries series and wrote asking if there would be more from this world. That encouragement spawned the Assassins of Gravas series.

  And thank you to the incredible team at Evernight Publishing—especially Stacey and Audrey—for working hard to bring this book to life.

  IVAR’S ESCAPE

  Assassins of Gravas, 2

  N.J. Walters

  Copyright © 2020

  Chapter One

  Darkness pressed down on him, squeezing his lungs, suffocating him. And what air he managed to suck back was fetid and damp, sticking to his lungs and making it more difficult, not easier to breathe.

  But even in the dark, there were shadows and voices. Angry voices.

  He tried to move but his arms and legs were weighed down, making it impossible. Sweat beaded on his brow and dripped down his forehead as he tried to force his limbs into obedience.

  Giving up was not in his DNA.

  Muscles bunched and burned. The voices were getting closer.

  The urge to stand his ground, to fight was almost overwhelming.

  He couldn’t even lift a finger. How could he fight?

  Heart pounding in his chest, he gritted his teeth to make another attempt. He wanted to roar his frustration, but remained silent. It was important not to let them know where he was.

  They were almost here…

  His eyes flew open as the nightmare released him from its icy grip. Lungs pumping, he gulped in air, which was little better than that of his dream.

  He closed his eyes and swore under his breath.

  Dream or not, one thing was true. Footsteps were coming closer. He stilled, letting his body go lax.

  A loud banging on the steel bars to his cell. “Hey there. Get up. Time to feed you. Although I don’t know why they bother,” the jailer muttered. “Waste of resources, if you ask me.”

  He pushed himself upright, every muscle in his body screaming from his last beating. The prisoner knew from past experience if he didn’t do so, his food would be dumped on the floor. And that was only if the jailer was in a good mood. If his mood was foul, he’d take the food away and feed it to the vicious hounds that guarded the place.

  “So glad you managed to stir yourself from your nap. Some of us have to work, you know. I don’t have time to be waiting on the likes of you.” The guard shoved the plate through a longer slit at the bottom of the door. A slender wooden cup was shoved between two of the upright bars, some of the precious water sloshing onto the floor.

  The guard stared at him and shook his head. The prisoner cataloged every detail from the pocked face, to the shaggy black hair and beard, to the cold blue eyes, full lips, and florid skin. Every day, he fantasized a dozen ways to kill the man.

  It helped keep his spirits up.

  “Too stupid to talk. You’ll rot in here if you don’t tell Balthazar what he wants to know.” He gave a deep sigh. “Won’t be long until I’m dragging your lifeless body out of here and washing the cell down for the next poor bugger.”

  The guard shambled away, taking the light from the lantern with him. The prisoner stayed where he was until the outer door clanged shut.

  Once he was alone, he moved toward the food. If he didn’t act fast, the rodents would smell it, come out, and grab it before he could.

  Plate and cup in hand, he scooted on his ass to the corner and put his back to the wall. Today’s fare was thin broth ladled over a few limp vegetables of some kind and a mystery meat. But it was warm and it was sustenance.

  All he had to do was stay alive. They’d come for him.

  He tilted his head back and stared unseeing at the stone ceiling of his cell. Who was coming? Why was he so certain they would?

  Putting aside that problem for now, he ate. His only utensils were his fingers, but they were effective. When he was done, he licked the plate clean. His stomach growled, protesting that the food was already gone. There would be no more for another day. And that was only if he was lucky.

  He wanted to savor the water but drank it as fast as he dared. Holding on to anything wasn’t safe. There was no telling when his interrogators would be back.

  Meal consumed, he picked up a sharp stone, a piece that had crumbled from the surrounding cell, and carved a mark into the wall. There were so many of them there. He marked the time by his meals as he had no window, no way to judge the passing of night and day.

  It was always dark here.

  Despair washed over him, a wave threatening to take him under until he drowned.

  It would be so easy to give up.

  Even as he thought it, every cell in his body protested. He wasn’t a quitter. He was a fighter. He might not know a great deal, but that much was clear.

  He returned his stone to the dark corner, away from prying eyes. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was something. And it was better than nothing.

  Your body is a weapon.

  The voice in his head was male, the tone matter-of-fact.

  “Who are you?” he whispered. He pressed his fingertips to his temples. He knew better than to try to force a memory. That only made his head pound and his stomach churn. He couldn’t afford to toss up the meal he’d just eaten.

  “My body is a weapon.” He scooted back to the cell door and shoved the plate and cup through the bars. If he didn’t, he’d get a beating and then be starved, neither of which was fun.

  Wrapping his fingers around the heavy bars, he slowly pulled himself upright. The weight of his body, which was substantially less than it had been, made his thighs quiver. Pain radiated down his back and chest. Beneath the ragged remains of his shirt, fresh wounds were still healing.

  Ignoring the relentless and never-ending pain, he used first the steel bars and then the stone wall for support as he shuffled around the perimeter of the cell. Ten steps to the back, eight across, and then ten back to the door.

  He’d been in and out of consciousness for two or three days. Maybe more, maybe less. It was hard to say. Lying around only weakened him further. He needed to be as strong as possible in case an opportunity to escape arose.

  That he had no idea who to contact if he managed to get free was irrelevant.

  His mind was blank, his memories lost.

  While he knew the basics of life, had reviewed the geography of the known universe from memory, recited various languages in his head, he had no idea how he knew all these things, where he’d learned them.

  Everything about who he was before waking in this hell was gone.

  “It will come back.” He repeated the phrase in ten languages as he continued to shuffle, relying less on the walls to keep him upright, putting more and more weight on his legs.

  Sweat beaded on his skin, dampening his clothing. He knew he stank but was long past worrying about it. When his captors dragged him out to
interrogate him again, they’d dump a few buckets of cold water on him. It was a sad state of affairs that he actually looked forward to it so he could be, not clean—as that was impossible without buckets of hot water and copious amounts of soap—but cleaner.

  Standing in the center of the small space, he extended his arms, his fingertips nearly brushing the walls on either side. The newest healing scars protested, but to no avail. He rotated his arms, moving them through a series of exercises that were instinctive.

  “My body is a weapon,” he repeated. While his identity was nothing more than a black hole, muscle memory assured him that he’d been trained to fight.

  Not well enough or he wouldn’t be in his current situation.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up. His brother would kill him if he died.

  The thought was fleeting but struck like a bolt of lightning. He dropped to his knees, head lowered, lungs heaving.

  I have a brother.

  It was a sense of knowing, a part of him.

  I’m not lost, not for good.

  It was only when hope surged that he realized how close he’d been to losing it. Buoyed by the tiny scrap of his past, he began to flow through a succession of movements designed to strengthen body and mind.

  A faint sound reached his ears. He immediately stilled. He’d been so caught up in the workout, and the sliver of hope that the memory had given, he hadn’t been paying full attention to his surroundings.

  Stupid will get you killed.

  It was the voice in his head again. Was it this unknown brother?

  Was that what had landed him here? Had he done something stupid?

  He waited, slowing his breathing and listening intently. There was no further sound but someone was out there. There was a change in the air, something he couldn’t quite explain, a sense of knowing.

  Trusting his intuition, he sank to the pallet on the floor, rolled on his side facing the bars, and lowered his eyelids. He kept them parted just slightly so he could see this new intruder if they came into sight.

  Maybe it was an animal. There were rats. They rarely bothered him as long as he ate fast. They kept the insect population under control, so he did his best to ignore them. If they came into his space, he tossed them back out. He hadn’t been hungry enough to think about eating them.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Lying still with his muscles relaxed, he feigned sleep.

  ****

  Delphi eased the metal grate aside and listened. It was quiet, but the silence was alive. Definitely someone in here.

  But was it her target?

  The enclosed space was narrow, barely big enough for a child, but she managed to wiggle her way down. The air was humid and still. Not a breeze reached her. Her clothes stuck to her skin. She was chaffing in places she didn’t want to think about.

  Better than the alternative.

  The sultry weather meant there were no flames shooting up in the fireplace whose chimney she was currently shimmying through. And since it was night, the guard had taken to his bunk with a flask in hand.

  There should be no problem from him.

  All she had to do was get out of this damn chimney. The people who ran the jail owed her. Her clothes and body were cleaning away years of soot and grime.

  “Remind me why I volunteered for this again,” she soundlessly muttered.

  But she knew why. Delphi was an assassin, not by choice but by an act of fate. Taken in as a child by a power-hungry woman, she and her twin brother, Zaxe, had been forced to train, to become killers. They’d also bonded with another girl—Sass. The three of them were tighter than any siblings.

  Sass had found the man of her dreams. Not surprisingly, another assassin. But Spear el Gravaso was more than an assassin. He was also a prince of Gravas, a very secretive, very powerful world.

  Now that all three of them were free—thanks to Spear and the military might of Gravas—she owed them. Not just for her life, but that of her twin and her sister-by-choice.

  Which was why she was squeezing into yet another small space in search of Spear’s missing brother. Ivar had gone off the radar over two standard lunar cycles ago. Every resource was being utilized to find him.

  And that now included her and her skills.

  Gripping the edges of the base of the chimney, she slowly poked her head out and scanned the area. Once assured it was clear, she lowered her hands to the floor, grimacing at the soot covering them, and then eased her body the rest of the way out.

  Hunkered down in the hearth, she rotated her neck to work the kinks out.

  She’d been on Tortuga a week now, and it didn’t get any better with familiarity. To put it bluntly, the place was a cesspool of criminals and degenerates of the worst kind. The planet was aptly named after a place on old Terra that had been a haven for pirates. Plenty of those here. Just the space variety.

  It was shocking how many locations in the settlement held prisoners of one kind or another. At least there wasn’t much high tech about their jails. All technology—from communicators to blasters and everything in between—was kept locked on their ships at the secured docking bay. That was the one rule everyone followed if they wanted to be allowed to stay.

  Smuggling any devices into the settlement resulted in immediate death.

  That worked in her favor. No tricky security systems to break in to. No high-tech prison. It should have been an easy enough task.

  But the low tech did a surprisingly good job. Thick stones, quarried from the nearby hills, had been used to erect sturdy buildings. The foundations of some had been dug deep, creating impenetrable prisons unless one got creative.

  Delphi silently slipped through the shadows. She was Zaxian by birth, which meant her dark skin blended with the night. It had also blessed her with better than average vision, allowing her to make out enough to move around without a light.

  This space was where the guard would stay during the daytime if someone was visiting a prisoner. At night, he retreated through the heavy door to the right and bolted it shut. Large dogs slept just beyond, deterring anyone from venturing too close.

  It had taken her three days and copious amounts of fresh meat to befriend the animals. The latest meat had been laced with a mild sedative. Nothing that would hurt them but enough that they’d sleep soundly.

  No way she’d hurt the dogs unless absolutely necessary. They’d been trained to be mean. It wasn’t their fault.

  The corridor was wide enough so a man could stroll down the center without being grabbed by a prisoner. Smart considering they had cells on both sides. From all the gossip she’d picked up in the taverns, Balthazar was a power here. Nothing happened unless he approved it. He was the self-crowned king of Tortuga.

  This has to be the place.

  Heart quickening, she padded down the center of the corridor, her footsteps soundless. She scanned each cell as she went, her spirits lowering with each step. There were no moans, no sounds of someone moving around. Nothing.

  But she was thorough and worked her way to the very end of the row.

  There!

  Off to the left, someone was curled up in a ball on a frayed blanket. Was he still alive? She ventured closer, crouching by the cell door, peering intently between the steel bars.

  Speaking aloud was a gamble. If this wasn’t Ivar and he yelled out, the guard would come running. It was about even odds between her being able to get up and out the chimney without detection and being caught and having to fight.

  She had to take the risk.

  “Are you awake?” She kept her voice low and toneless. Tonight, she was in the disguise she donned when she wanted to skulk around. She easily passed as a male youth with her hair braided and stuffed under a skullcap, her breasts bound. Not that there was much to bind in the first place. Her lean, slender build added to her disguise. Most of the females on Tortuga flaunted their femininity. They either used it to make a living or were space pirates who’d shoot a man dead if one made unwante
d advances.

  Delphi was trying to move about as undetected as possible. People spoke more freely around a young man than they did a woman, even one considered a dangerous mercenary. With her communication device locked on her ship, she was on her own, a fact that had to be driving both her siblings crazy. After much discussion—okay, more of a shouting match—it had been decided she’d come on her own. The deal was she’d keep in contact. None of them had known about the no-tech-allowed rule.

  The man wasn’t moving.

  Delphi glanced at the door at the far end of the corridor. It was solid wood. She should be safe enough. Taking a risk, she eased a candle stub and matches from her pants pocket. Primitive but effective.

  She struck the match and touched the flame to the wick.

  He exploded from the pallet and lunged. She scrambled away, her back hitting the cell door behind her. Shit, he was fast. If it hadn’t been for her training, he’d have his hands around her neck right now.

  Miraculously, the light hadn’t gone out. The candle was on its side. The large male grabbed it and pulled it inside, giving her a good look at him.

  His hair was long and dark and matted. An unkempt beard covered the lower half of his face. His clothes were in tatters, his feet bare. His eyes were golden brown, like a coywolf she’d seen a picture of once, and just as feral. A barely healed scar ran down the left side of his face, starting at his temple and disappearing into his beard.

  She held up her hands to show him she was unarmed. “I’m not here to hurt you.” It was only dumb luck that she hadn’t rattled the steel doors when she’d hit them and possibly woken the guard. He’d been drinking, but it might not be enough for him to pass out.

  Still in a crouch, the prisoner studied her. He’d see the image she wanted to project—a teenage boy with a pockmarked face. Disguises were part of an assassin’s bag of tricks, and this was her specialty.