A mess of hands grasped his arms, trying without success to restrain the mountain of a man. He threw his weight forward and tore free, grabbing one by the neck and flinging him through what little was left of the crucifix.
He spun again, grabbed another by the folds of his robe, and unleashed a heavy fist straight to the face. With his gauntlet off, it hurt, but he knew it felt better than the attacker’s face must have. The ceramic mask split down the middle before its wearer stumbled backward, landing with a forceful thud.
Torsten took a hard step toward another, but as soon as his foot landed, searing heat coursed through it. His leg gave out and sent him slipping through the blood-puddled mud. When he was able to, he looked up to see the same armed assailant with blood dripping from a long cut across the top of one of his bare feet.
Torsten tried to fight the burning sensation, but his armor was designed for armed combat—as heavy as it was durable, exhausting to wear in a hand-to-hand brawl.
The men reached down for a second time, trying to haul Torsten off the ground. It went just as poorly as their first attempt. Finally, they got one of his arms wrenched behind his back and smashed him in the back of the skull with something solid.
White spots flashed across Torsten’s vision, and he collapsed face-first into the mud. Blood and ashes filled his nostrils. Fresh embers stung his flushed cheeks. More hands drew him upright before binding his wrists and towing him along like a dog on a leash. He offered as much resistance as he could, but his muscles were too strained and his head too foggy. He cursed Whitney for cutting into the few precious minutes of sleep he was able to get over the past day.
Whitney, he remembered. Now he understood how he had felt when his hands were bound. The young thief spat a long strain of curses, and in his peripheral, Torsten saw his arms flailing wildly as they hauled him along.
“Cut it out, kid,” Torsten muttered.
Whitney ignored him. “You have the wrong guy!” he said. “I love wearing masks too.”
Torsten could hear the whispers of the robed figures holding Whitney. They spoke plainly, but he didn’t understand them. As former Wearer of White, he knew of every language in Pantego, but this one caused his lungs to deflate.
Drav Crava.
The harshness of the language of Redstar’s people could not be mistaken. The worst southern cultists to the Buried Goddess often learned it as they longed for the savagery of the Drav Cra, but some of their captors spoke it without a hitch like they were born in the far north.
“Seriously, if you all were smart, you’d take me up on that ring,” Whitney said, then pointed to Torsten. “Do you know who that is?”
“Be quiet!” Torsten snapped.
“You’re lucky a lightning bolt hasn’t struck you yet. That’s Iam’s own Wearer of White you’re hauling. “
The one leading the processional, the one who’d cut himself twice, raised his hand. His followers stopped. The others parted to allow him passage. He stopped in front of Whitney. Torsten swore inwardly. He could see the man’s eyes, as dark as wet earth, through the slots in his impassive mask. The steam of his breath leaked from the bottom on the crisp, fall air.
He closed in on Whitney, hand curled around the handle of his curved dagger. Whitney steeled himself and strained his neck, lifting his chin. Torsten thought he saw the boy quiver just a bit.
“That’s not what I hear,” the cultist whispered to Whitney.
Then, before Whitney could respond, one of the figures hit him hard on the side of the head, and he fell limp.
“The Queen Regent will have your heads!” Torsten shouted and drew on all the energy left in his body, yanking until the ropes dug into his wrists.
He didn’t get far before two sets of hands squeezed his arms together so hard the pain of the clashing bones became unbearable. Someone grunted something in Drav Crava. A foul-smelling cloth sack descended over Torsten’s head. Torsten labored for breath. They were relentless as they walked, tugging so hard Torsten struggled to maintain his footing.
Silhouettes of light and shadow became his world. All he could make out was the twisting canopy of branches above, waving in the wind as if taunting him. They moved down a sharp, steep slope winding back and forth as even the shadows of trees disappeared.
“Where are you taking us?” he asked, his voice muffled.
The sound of rushing water echoed. He heard a cranking sound followed by a bang that made him flinch. A gust of air caught his legs before he was shoved onto the first plank of a rickety suspension bridge. He hesitated for a moment but was pulled so hard he stumbled over a gap.
The bridge swung spasmodically beneath his weight, and it took him a few steps to realize that the planks were made of metal rather than wood. He tried to stop, but his captors allowed him no rest, moving along until his feet hit solid ground and further still, until the sound of water was but a distant memory.
They were entering a cave… no a fortress. The stone beneath his feet was much too smooth to be natural. Even through the cloth, he could see torchlight painting sharp corners and stilted archways. He only knew of two places that designed arches like that: cathedrals of Iam, and the underground dwarven cities of the Dragon Tail.
They stopped.
Torsten opened his mouth to speak but was promptly shoved to the ground. He gasped and coughed, desperate to catch his breath. One of the hooded men tilted him upright, tore the sack off his head and forced him into a cage along the wall. The space was so cramped he had to crouch not to hit his head. Whitney was dumped in another cage beside him.
“Where have you taken us,” Torsten said, still winded. The roomy hollow beyond the brass bars of the cage was unexpectedly ornate. Columns hewn from the rock filled the space, spottily clad in gold and bronze that looked like it had tarnished centuries early. They wrapped a circular basin situated below a domed ceiling as smooth as Glass.
It all reminded Torsten of the Royal Crypt, and that was because the people that constructed this place had constructed that one as well. A dwarven fortress, manned by their kind eons ago when their kingdoms ruled Pantego before man descended from the Drav Cra and drove them underground. The place may have lost all its luster, but the dwarven ruins scattered throughout Pantego remained sturdier than half the castles in the kingdom.
The assumed leader of the cultists stepped toward the basin, flicked his hand, a slow stream of blood still pouring from the wound. A blazing fire erupted from the pit at its center, nearly licking the ceiling with its tendrils.
The bloody, hooded man barked something at the others in Drav Cra. One by one, they filed out until only Torsten, and an unconscious Whitney were left with him.
He turned from the flame, lowered his hood, and slowly removed his mask, revealing the face of a man—pale as parchment and nearly as thin. His nose was long and crooked, like a carrion bird. Torsten tried to get a sense of the man’s age, but it was impossible. Flaking, black paint was smeared across the top half of his face with a thin line of red just around his eyes. A thick necklace of sharp teeth and bones rattled around his skinny neck.
He was a true warlock—the mortal servants of Nesilia, their heathen Buried Goddess—like Redstar was. There was only one reason such a wicked man of the Drav Cra would be so far south masquerading as a cultist.
“Where is he?” Torsten asked through clenched teeth. He wrapped his hands around the bars of his prison and pressed his nose through the narrow opening.
The warlock spoke to the flames in the language Torsten didn’t understand. Torsten’s head suddenly began to ache, like the inside of his skull was put to the torch. The warlock’s words morphed, shifting into the common tongue in the midst of a phrase.
“—a blot, a stain upon this land,” he said. “She must be eradicated, and he will do it. A knight, a master of shadows, and a—”
“Where is your master?” Torsten growled, interrupting him. “Where is Redstar!” He banged on the cage with what little strength he co
uld muster.
The warlock turned to him. The sight of his painted face made Torsten uneasy.
Whitney was just beginning to stir and jolted upward, hitting his head against the low ceiling of his dwarven cage. Torsten couldn’t imagine any other reaction to waking to see such an unpleasant façade.
“He won’t get away with this,” Torsten said.
The warlock stopped and leaned down in front of the cage, his dark eyes boring directly to his core. Out of nowhere, he grasped Torsten’s hand, pulled it through the cage, and sliced the tip of his finger. The cage shook as Torsten tore free and slammed against the back wall.
The warlock brought a bit of Torsten’s blood to his lips, his tongue lashed out, staining it red. It reminded Torsten of a lizard or a toad catching its prey.
“Interesting,” he said, voice like a serpent. “I sense that you have already been in contact with our lady below. The master will want to see you.” He stood, turned, and left without another word.
“Get back here, heretic!” Torsten rattled the cage, but he was answered only by his own echo.
XVIII
THE THIEF
“This is hog’s piss,” Whitney said, scratching at a line in the stone wall at the back end of his cage.
Torsten grunted an indecipherable reply.
“You realize this is the third time in almost as many days I’ve found myself locked up in a cage?” Whitney asked. He banged on the low ceiling. “And a Dwarven one to boot? I’m starting to hate them.”
“You’re a bloody thief,” Torsten said. “What do you expect?”
“Oh, and you’re so noble, are you, Shieldsman?” Whitney crawled across the cage to look through the brass bars that separated them. “I’m no idiot. I know a Nesilia cult when I see one. What did you do to anger the Buried Goddess and get us all thrown in here?”
“There is only one god’s opinion which matters.”
Whitney scoffed. “I’ve been to every corner of Pantego, friend. Seen men worship everything from silence to flowers. It was all as real as Iam to them, but say it out loud, and you’ll find yourself in a dungeon just like this one.”
“And now you see why. There is only one God who loves mankind. The others spread and corrupt like a virus. All they seek is power.”
“I know of a guy who conquered just about everyone in Pantego for a god you say, ‘loves mankind,’” Whitney said. “Doesn’t sound too loving to me.”
“He loves enough to pursue,” Torsten said, resolute.
Whitney made a raspberry sound with his lips. “If Iam gave a lick about us we wouldn’t be in here. Now it’s up to me to find us a way out.”
Torsten leaned his head against the back wall, then closed his eyes as if nothing was wrong. Whitney wanted to punch him, but couldn’t reach. More importantly, he wanted to bash that damned dwarf from the tavern in his wobbly-eyed face. “Rob the King,” he’d said. “It’ll be fun. Hog’s piss.”
Whitney crawled the length of the cell, which didn’t take long. If he laid down and stretched his hands, every limb would be sticking through the bars.
What am I doing?
Chasing after a baby’s toy toward the most dangerous place in Pantego. He’d have been better off falling down a dwarven mineshaft… one they still inhabited at least. They might have had the decency to offer him an ale at the bottom.
He glanced back at his companion who’d constantly cursed his being and spat on him the way knights tended to do to thieves. The man who’d done the total opposite of offering a drink—tied his hands and dragged him along like a badly behaved pet. It hadn’t been much longer than a day, and they’d been attacked by dire wolves, found a man crucified in a burning town, and now been nabbed by some psychotic Buried Goddess cult practicing blood magic. Torsten had never said that’s what it was, but Whitney had seen plenty of magic before.
All that, yet the thing his mind kept drawing back to, was how quickly the brave Shieldsman pretending to nap in the neighboring cage was able to condemn the crucified villager to death—like it was just another day at work.
Whitney preferred to do his work alone. Even if his partner wasn’t a justice-hungry, obey-the-authorities-at-all-costs, goody-goody like Torsten, being involved meant another life to worry about.
Whitney preferred only worrying about himself.
Stealing may have been the only thing he was good for—and he was damn good at it. Why did he need to prove himself by stealing a silly little toy from an insane Drav Cra warlock and his made-up spider queen? Whitney had stolen the crown off the King's very head.
I’m not going to sit around, waiting for Torsten to feed me to the spider just to save his own hide.
He searched the cage walls, ceiling, and floor, for anything that would help him break out, but found nothing.
He swore and kicked the rock wall at the back. A piece of stone broke off. It pinged off one of the bars of his cage and struck him in the thigh.
A smile crossed his face. He rushed over to the fragment of rock and picked it up. He took a step toward the wall between him and the Shieldsman.
“Torsten,” Whitney whispered. The man didn’t stir. Exhausted enough to fall from his horse, his fake nap had turned real very fast. “Torsten,” Whitney said lilting his voice like a child playing street games.
Finally, asleep.
Whitney squeezed his hand through the bars into Torsten’s cage. He prodded the Shieldsman’s only remaining gauntlet and checked to make sure it didn’t wake him. All that hard work keeping him awake on their horseback ride was paying off. Taking a deep breath, he ripped the gauntlet free, wincing as he pulled it into his own cage. Torsten continued snoring, snorted, and turned his head away.
“Some knight,” Whitney mumbled under his breath.
Giving the room a quick scan, he stretched the gauntlet out along the floor. The rock made a dull clunk as it banged on the jointed metal of the pinky finger. He continued, cringing with each hit, worried he might rouse Torsten or draw the attention of one of those freaks. Finally, the end piece of plating broke free.
“Would you keep it down?” Torsten grumbled. “I’m trying to think.”
“Sorry,” Whitney answered. “Cages give me jitters.”
Whitney waited a few minutes until he heard the steady rasp of snores again. Then he continued banging. He paused, then did it again, and again, flattening the metal into as thin a sliver as possible.
It wasn’t the finest lock-pick he’d ever crafted, but not the worst either. Considering the hooded cultists had seen fit only to have a guard pass through to observe the cages on rotation, they were either not used to holding prisoners, overconfident, or both.
Not a good combo while trying to confine Pantego’s greatest thief!
Whitney twisted his hand between bars and lifted the lock with the other. The angle killed his wrist, but he clenched his jaw and got to work. The tip of the gauntlet’s finger-piece just barely fit. He lowered his ear and listened for the familiar clicking of tumblers in the lock.
He had it the first try but was interrupted by footsteps. A cultist entered the room holding a candle, probably drawn by the sound of him slamming the gauntlet. Whitney snapped backward and lounged, the gauntlet stuffed beneath his back and digging into him.
“Any chance on getting a meal down here?” he asked.
The man turned, stared his way from behind his expressionless mask. Whitney always thought the depictions of demons were the stuff of nightmares, with their horns, eyes of fire and disfigured faces. He was wrong. This was.
The cultist then continued on his way without responding.
“What is with people and not wanting to eat?” Whitney groaned to himself, loud enough for the cultist to hear him. He leaned forward as the man went by, and the second he was around the corner got back to work.
It took longer than he cared to admit the second time, taking breaks only to rest his hand or bang on the piece of metal again to reshape it. Occasionally,
he glanced up to see if Torsten had awoken and to make sure no more of the cultists were approaching.
Whitney’s fingers were shaking by the time he heard the lock click and fall open.
“Got you!” he exclaimed, then realized how loud he’d been.
With the lock disarmed, he took a moment to admire his handiwork. The makeshift pick was barely in one piece, but it had worked.
Making a lock-pick out of a piece of glaruium to escape a cult of fanatics and the Wearer of White was one for the records. He’d barely have to add any flair when he told it at taverns across Pantego.
Sidling through the cage door, he stopped. Footsteps were approaching again, and Whitney hurried across the circular space toward the single, poorly lit passage leading out. It felt good to be able to stretch his neck. That was the thing about dwarves, only their prisons suited their size. They built everything else in a way that dwarfed giants.
He peeked around the corner. The cultist and his candle were heading his way, no way around them. Whitney ducked back down and scanned the room for loose stone. His heart started to race.
Damn those dwarves and their craftsmanship!
Old as the place was, he didn’t find a piece of stone big enough until right before the cultist entered. It’d been a while since he had to make a move so drastic, but if he could battle Shesaitju, he could handle this. He waited until he saw the shadow of the man go by, wavering in the candlelight. The cultist froze in the doorway, facing Whitney’s now empty cage. The beginnings of a word were on his lips when Whitney bashed him in the head just like they had done to him earlier.
The cultist didn’t go down easy. He turned, and Whitney struck him again in the face, cracking his mask in two. Whitney caught both him and the candle before it hit the floor. He glanced over at Torsten, who was so exhausted he still hadn’t woken. Only then did Whitney finally exhale. He placed the candle down, then dragged the man off to the side and lowered him.
“How do you like being hit?” he whispered in the unconscious man’s ear. He considered stealing the robe, but the man’s mask was unusable and getting the cumbersome robe off a limp body would take too long. Instead, he stole the man’s wavy dagger and used it to tear off a piece of the sleeve to stuff in the man’s mouth.
The Redstar Rising Trilogy Page 14
