The next day, a guard noticed that Claudius’s grave had been dug up in the night, his remains disinterred, dragged to the tree line, and left for scavengers, who had left no trace of them. The guard ran to inform the Council and returned with Sayer and Fayre.
Sayer wanted to launch a new investigation, but Fayre would have none of it. “So far, only the three of us know about this,” she said, looking to the guard for confirmation. He nodded, and she continued, “I suggest we keep it that way. An investigation would drag all of this ugliness back into the light of day. Someone feels better, but they’re not telling anyone, and that suits me fine. Besides, Lily still mourns her father, undeserving though he may be. Let’s give her the peace to do so.”
Sayer was indignant and bristled at the missed opportunity for busywork, but Fayre stared him down. Eventually, he relented, and Fayre swore the guard to secrecy. It was never spoken of again, and that chapter in the village’s history was closed forever.
16
Kala
Kala sat shivering on the floor of the tiny compartment in the airship, wondering what the hell she was doing there. What had pushed her to leave the village? Did I do it to protect Lily? Did it fulfill the promise that kept me tethered to the village? Would my restlessness have made me leave eventually, if I didn’t die in the woods first? Am I chasing Skye? The reasons swirled together, and the more she thought about them, the less sense they made.
Did I really need to kill Claudius? Sure, he was a monster that Lily and Forest needed protection from, but am I lying to myself? Was it anger? She ran her finger repeatedly along the inside of her bracelet to ground herself in the darkness.
It didn’t help that she felt light-headed much of the time. She added a headache to her list of discomforts, which included a sore back and an empty stomach. She had no idea how long her food and water would have to last, so she rationed them the same way she would in the forest. The time passed as she drifted in and out of sleep.
By her reckoning, she’d been confined in the compartment for five or six days when the door was yanked open suddenly, and blinding light streamed in. Two sets of hands hauled her out roughly into the light. Her legs were asleep from being folded under her for so long, so when the hands released her, she crumpled to her knees.
“What do we have here?” a voice intoned.
Kala struggled to focus on the speaker as her eyes became accustomed to the glare.
“A little birdy fell out of its nest, perhaps?” the voice continued.
Kala’s vision cleared enough for her to see a slight, well-dressed man leaning casually against a wagon. He was dressed foppishly in stark contrast to the band of thuggish-looking men that surrounded him, including the two that had pulled her out of the airship and now flanked her menacingly. A young man stood calmly beside the leader, and something about his posture and the alertness in his eyes marked him as the most dangerous of the group.
“Okay, I’m already bored,” the leader said and pushed off the wagon. “Do with her what you will, but I want her boots,” he added and turned away.
There was a moment’s silence, then Kala replied, “I’m kind of fond of them.”
The leader turned testily to see that Kala had gained her feet. Both of the men that had flanked her lay on the ground, one clutching his groin, the other with his own knife stuck in his thigh.
“I changed my mind…,” he said. “This is starting to get interesting.”
Kala just glared at him.
He glanced at the man clutching a knife in his leg and drew his own dagger. “Fancy yourself good with a blade, do you? What can you do with this?” he asked and hurled the dagger at her head.
She caught it by its hilt, spun, and threw it back at him. She regained her balance and turned around, only to find the man looking shocked as the dangerous-looking youth caught the dagger a hand’s width from his boss’s face.
The young man handed the dagger back to him, who took it and spun it casually in the air while running the fingers of his other hand through his hair.
“I think you might just be useful after all,” he decided.
The man on the ground with the knife in his leg groaned.
The leader rolled his eyes. “For the gods’ sake, someone help Kier with that knife,” he said, gesturing to the men standing about.
A violent-looking man walked over to him, waved his hands away from the blade, and yanked it from his leg.
“Thank you…” Kier began before the man stabbed him through the throat with the knife.
He gurgled on the blade while the man holding it began to drag his body away by its hilt.
“Any of the rest of you let a little girl get the drop on you, and you’ll pray to get off as easily as Kier here,” the leader told his men.
The man on Kala’s other side regained his feet and shot her a murderous look. If it weren’t for Kala’s being right-handed, it could just as easily have been his body that was being dragged away.
The leader turned to Kala. “It’s your lucky day. You get to keep your boots.” Then he added to the man on her left, “Bring her.”
Kala tensed, and the leader rolled his eyes. He flipped his dagger to a throwing position. Kala readied herself and was taken unaware by the roundhouse punch delivered by the man beside her. She was blacked out before she could hear the leader mutter to himself, “Too easy,” and walk away.
Kala regained consciousness to find herself in a cage suspended from the rafters of a large, open room. She gripped the bars but found them to be made of rusty, but sturdy steel. She slouched down against the bars at her back and looked about the room. It resembled a gaudy throne room. There was an ornate but worn chair on an elevated platform opposite a fire going in the hearth. Faded tapestries adorned the walls.
“Do you like your cage, little birdy?” a voice called out from behind her.
Kala shifted around to see that the leader had entered the room, escorted by the dangerous-looking young man.
She said nothing. The leader made his way to the chair on the dais, deposited himself in it, and draped a leg over its arm. The young man took up a position at his side. Kala instinctively felt her thigh for her knife but remembered that she hadn’t been able to bring it with her in the airship. She looked herself over and thanked the gods that she at least hadn’t been relieved of her boots, or her leathers.
“My name is Baron,” the seated man announced. “Fitting, isn’t it?” he said pompously, tapping a ridiculous-looking crown on his head.
“If you say so,” Kala replied sarcastically.
“Says the girl in the cage,” he replied smugly. “I own you now, but it doesn’t appear that you fully grasp that yet, so you force me to make it clear.” He turned to the young man, “Rat, go tell Thane that I have a use for him.”
“What kind of name is Rat?” Kala scoffed.
“An apt one,” Baron replied, “and you’d be wise not to get on his bad side. Rats bite.”
The man named Rat left, and Baron hunted around for some wine. He returned to his chair and sat sipping from a goblet until Rat returned, escorted by Thane, the hulking man that Kala had punched in the groin. He looked up at her and grinned murderously. Kala flinched.
Rat walked to a spool of chain secured to the wall and proceeded to turn a crank that lowered Kala’s cage to the ground. Thane took off his tunic, warmed up his muscles, and cracked his knuckles. Baron leaned back on his ‘throne.’
When the cage settled on the floor, Thane looked to Baron, who tossed him a ring of keys. Thane unlocked the cage and pulled Kala out by her shoulders. He hauled her to her feet and glanced at Baron, who waved at him dismissively.
Pain exploded in Kala’s stomach, where Thane punched her. She collapsed, gasping. He hauled her upright and backhanded her to the floor. This went on until she blacked out – she reckoned it didn’t take all that long.
She was startled into consciousness by something foul-smelling waved under her nose. She chok
ed on the smell and was rewarded by a punch to the face. She was knocked out and repeatedly revived until even the foul smell didn’t rouse her from the darkness.
She was returned to the cage, and the cycle repeated for as long as she came to be able to remember. Sometimes Baron would stop Thane and ask her, “Are you okay?” It began to blur whether Baron called for Thane or called him off.
Intermittently, she’d be woken by pangs of hunger and find Baron sprawled in his chair, feasting on roast pheasant or boar.
“Hungry?” he’d ask, knowing full well that she was ravenous. He’d motion to the young man called Rat to lower her cage closer to the ground. He’d lift himself off his throne with great effort and walk to her cage with a portion of meat impaled on his dagger.
“Who’s my little birdy?” he’d ask. The first time Kala said nothing, and he sighed and returned to his seat, motioning Rat to raise her cage.
The next time he asked, “Who’s my little birdy?” Kala grudgingly replied, “I am.”
He smiled a broad smile. “Good girl,” he said and held out the meat on his dagger to her. Every atom of her body screamed at her to preserve her dignity, but hunger made an animal of her, and she snatched at it. He pulled it just out of reach before she could claim it, but smiled and handed it back to her, letting her have it the second time. She tore into it, and Baron waved at Rat to raise her cage.
After a particularly punishing beating, she drifted back to consciousness to find Rat bandaging her wounds. “A rat with a heart,” she muttered and blacked out again.
Kala slowly forgot her name, accustomed as she became to answering to ‘Little Birdy.’ She could remember nothing of her life before the daily beatings and the ensuing darkness. She began to pray for the darkness.
Kala lay in her cage, nursing sore ribs. Her world had become a cycle of pain, oscillating between acute and dull, and it became her only measure of the passage of time.
Baron walked into the room, followed by Thane and a couple of his flunkies.
“We’re going to have a little fun today,” he declared and motioned to one of the men to lower Kala’s cage. Once it was on the ground, Thane pulled her out, and she readied herself for the beating that would ensue.
Baron noticed her resigned look. “Field trip,” he informed her, grinning. Thane hauled her with them as Baron lead them out of the room and out of the building. It was dark outside in the alleyway, so Kala could make out little of her surroundings, but she filled her lungs with the fresh night air and felt slightly more human. Thane shoved her forward, and Baron led them down the alley. She marveled at the buildings that surrounded them, each of which tall enough to have a second or even third story, as if the cottages of her village were stacked on top of each other. The roofs were shingled with slate tiles and Kala couldn’t imagine how the buildings could support their weight. Thane had to keep pushing her along as she slowed to stare upwards. Baron led them to a nondescript building several blocks away. He held open the door in a mock display of chivalry and Thane pushed her roughly through it.
She found herself in a dingy corridor with sawdust on the floor. A metallic smell hung in the air and Kala realized that the sawdust was meant to soak up blood. She wondered what fresh manner of horrors awaited her here. Baron split off, and Thane shoved her down the hallway until it opened into a circular room lit by torches. Kala stepped out and surveyed the room. The walls were featureless stone, save for evenly-spaced torches, broken up only by the doorway she’d just entered and another opposite it.
Thane grinned evilly and closed the door behind her. Stepping into the room, Kala noticed that it had no ceiling. Instead, it was ringed by a raised gallery. People were sitting above her, drinking and chatting. Others filed in and found seats. Whatever was going to happen, Kala was the entertainment. She paced around the room, looking for clues of what awaited her. The only things in the room were the torches, and she found that they were bolted to the wall so that they couldn’t be removed.
The creak of an opening door made her turn around as a young woman was shoved into the room. She was thin, poorly dressed, and strung out. She fidgeted with her hands and looked to Kala for some inkling of what was going on, but Kala had none to offer.
A voice cleared itself in the gallery, and Kala and the other woman looked up to see that Baron had taken a seat in a chair that indicated he was the master of these proceedings. Rat occupied a place behind him, looking disgusted.
Baron looked at Kala, then at the woman across from her. “Chantal,” he began. “It is good to see you again.”
“Like you care,” she replied and spat on the ground.
“Oh, I care,” he replied, smiling magnanimously. “Here’s proof,” he added and tossed her a small amount of the street drug kor that Kala had heard talk of at Baron’s when she wasn’t unconscious.
The woman kicked the packet aside defiantly.
“That’s not very appreciative,” he scolded, to the laughter of the crowd. “But that’s just a taste,” he tempted and pulled out a small sack that he put down on the arm of his chair.
The woman eyed it hungrily but did her best to master herself.
Baron picked up the sack of kor and dangled it before her. “This can be yours if you can accomplish a small task.” He paused as the woman considered what he’d demand of her. He gestured casually at Kala. “Kill her,” he said.
Kala and the woman both stared up at him in shock.
Baron looked back and forth between the two women. “Let me give you a hand,” he said and tossed a knife at Chantal’s feet.
She just stared at it.
“Limited time offer,” Baron concluded, pushing the sack slightly closer, then turning to chat with the man beside him. The crowd began to speculate, and money changed hands.
Kala looked from Chantal to Baron, to the crowd, and back to Chantal.
Chantal looked from the knife at her feet, to Kala, to the packet of kor on the ground, and back to the knife. She grew increasingly agitated.
“Chantal,” Kala said to her. “You don’t have to do this.”
The woman picked up the knife uncertainly and carried it over to the packet of kor. She bent down, picked it up, and struggled to restrain herself as she stared at it in her hand.
“Go on,” Baron urged her.
She began to sweat, then used to knife to tear open the packet and snort its contents.
“Atta girl,” Baron encouraged as her eyes rolled back, and the drug flooded her system. Relief washed over her, and she locked her eyes on the sack in front of him. She stared at it for a moment, then turned slowly to face Kala, raising the knife.
“Don’t do this, Chantal,” Kala begged her, raising her hands, but if Chantal heard her, it didn’t register.
She advanced slowly toward Kala, holding the blade before her. The crowd quieted in anticipation. Chantal swung the knife clumsily, and Kala caught her arm. Chantal struggled but lacked Kala’s strength.
“Let it go,” Kala begged her, but Chantal held the knife firmly and tried to yank her arm free. Kala leaned forward and smashed her forehead into the woman’s nose. Chantal staggered back, squinting against the pain, her broken nose spraying blood. The crowd howled its support.
Chantal regained her focus and looked to her hand to confirm that she still held the knife. She smiled derangedly and advanced again, stabbing forward. Kala swept her arm aside, hauled back, and punched her in her already-broken nose. She fell backward to the ground and did not rise.
The crowd howled its disappointment, and more money changed hands.
A moment passed, the door behind Chantal opened, and two thuggish-looking men emerged to drag her out of the room, taking the knife with them.
“Chantal, Chantal,” Baron intoned. “I’m so disappointed.” He looked down at a scrap of paper on his lap. “What else do we have on the agenda tonight?” he mused aloud. “Aww, Beryl… again.”
A brute of a man was shoved into the room through the
still-open door, which slammed shut behind him.
“Beryl, you’re back. Shame on you,” Baron admonished him.
The man bristled but looked unrepentant.
“It seems you’ve been roughing up my girls again. It’s not great for business when you leave marks.”
He stared at Baron defiantly.
“I’m prepared to overlook this latest of your transgressions if you provide us with adequate entertainment,” he said, gesturing at Kala.
Kala looked up at Baron in disbelief, and noticed Rat turn and leave the room.
Beryl looked Kala over. His gaze lingered, and it made her skin crawl. He turned back to Baron and shrugged acceptance of the deal. The crowd erupted into a flurry of wagering.
The man removed his jacket and threw it aside.
Kala looked about for anything she could use to protect herself. She darted to a torch and began worrying out one of the bolts that held it fastened to the wall. Her fingers bled, but the first bolt started to come loose.
Beryl laughed at her efforts. “I’m not afraid of fire,” he said mockingly, and the crowd laughed. He advanced toward Kala, fists raised.
Kala stopped working on loosening the second bolt, turned to Beryl, and raised her hands to protect herself.
He swung and knocked her off her feet. She staggered back to her feet slowly, shaking the stars from her vision.
Beryl just watched her ready herself, then advanced again, feinting with a punch, and when she tensed, leveling her with his other fist. She hit the ground hard and had difficulty recovering her vision. She felt him grab her roughly by the front of her shirt and pull back his arm to hit her again.
Instead of tensing for the impact, she balled her hand around the bolt she’d worked free, and drove her fist into his groin. He released his hold on her and bent over. She rose, and he looked up at her with unbridled malice as he clutched his groin. Kala swung a kick that connected with his creepy face. He fell back, twisting to land on his hands and knees. Kala quickly took a step closer and kicked him again in the face with all the strength she had. She probably broke her foot, but she didn’t care. He rolled onto his back, unconscious. She limped over to him and knelt on his chest. She pummeled his face in an adrenaline-fueled haze of anger and fear until she was too fatigued to continue. She looked up from his bloody body to Baron, who seemed positively gleeful.
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