by Mason Thomas
Guard station. Barracks. Training ground.
Hunter bit the inside of his cheek in thought. Too many movies placed dungeons in the dark bowels of the castle itself, but it made pragmatic sense for criminals to be caged in the same location as the guards. The procession herding the prisoners dissolved as they reached the door of the station. Most of the guards peeled off to watch the skirmishes in the pen, while the two in front roughly hustled the prisoners inside.
A raised wooden platform beyond the training yard snagged his eye. The wood was blonde, unweathered—this was recently built. Stairs led up the side, and a conspicuous wooden block was positioned in the center. Hunter’s insides hollowed like a dank cave at the sight of it. It was quiet and empty now, but Hunter felt like it was waiting. An image of Dax kneeling on that grim stage sprang into his mind, his head positioned over the block. A stark reminder of the outcome if he failed.
He had no time to be tentative. In for a penny, as they say. He pulled in a long breath, clenched his hands into fists, and marched toward the building.
The heavy door leading inside was stiff on its hinges, and he looked clumsy as he heaved it open. He couldn’t see anything, but a wave of hot air assaulted him as he stepped past the threshold, a sticky mix that was part postgame locker room and part sleazy bar bathroom. He pulled the door shut behind him with a thud. His eyes were slow to adjust, but he moved in regardless, not wanting to look as if the place was unfamiliar. Even without seeing, the place felt grim and oppressive. He shouldered his way past the crowd that loitered by the entrance and pushed his way into the thick of it.
Half-blind, he caught his hip on the edge of a table. The man behind it, an open book splayed out in front of him, cursed at Hunter as he righted an inkwell that had spilled its contents across the table, traveling between the planks.
Hunter mumbled an apology and kept moving. He skirted around two guards and caught a fragment of their mumbled conversation.
“Main hall,” said one as Hunter shouldered past. “Third day in a row.”
The other made a sympathetic sound in his throat. “You piss off Venzura?”
“Who knows. All fucking day too. Stuck listening to those whining crofters makes my skin itch. Fucking ingrates.”
“Don’t know how the queen stands it, to be honest.”
The crowd thinned beyond the vestibule, and Hunter’s eyes finally adjusted to the dark. He goose-necked into a few rooms. Some were occupied; some were not. They looked administrative—nothing useful to him. He pushed onward and entered a long hallway.
From there, he took a moment to take stock. Most of the movement around him seemed relaxed. Routine. It appeared he’d stumbled in around the time of a shift change. To the left was a staircase to the second floor. A female guard tottered down, latching up the buckles on her leather armor. To the right, a wide double door had steady traffic in and out, and Hunter could smell cooked meat. The mess hall.
His heart pounded in his ears, and he tried to avoid eye contact with anyone. Someone of his size didn’t blend in well. A few glanced his way. Hunter waited to be called out as someone who didn’t belong, but each time, the gaze turned away, and they went about their business.
At the far end of the corridor, at the point the corridor took a ninety-degree turn, a guardsman stood stiff against the wall. He held a long pike in his gauntleted hand that was firmly planted on the floor next to him.
A very formal stance. An on-duty stance.
Hunter attempted an official gait down the corridor. He marched forward, his boots making a conspicuous clomp on the wood-plank floor. The on-duty guardsman made no notice of his approach. He kept his eyes forward and unblinking. As Hunter reached the corner, the man’s eyes shifted briefly his way. Hunter’s heart jumped, but he locked the air in his lungs and made a tiny drop of his chin and kept moving. He fully expected the guard to order him to halt.
But nothing happened.
He quietly let the air from his lungs and kept moving.
This wing of the building carried a different energy. It was quieter, certainly, and had the timbre of seriousness, something more administrative. He slunk past rooms occupied by grunts hunched over desks, scribbling away in massive tomes. The corridor ended at a heavily armored door. The kind of door that would lead down into a prison.
He reached for the latch—then hesitated. If it was locked, it would look suspicious that he didn’t know that. Someone authorized to be down there would know if it was kept locked or not. His hand moved to his waist. He still had the ring of keys from the guard he’d knocked out.
Was there one master key for all the important locks?
He took hold of one of the three clunky skeleton keys between his finger and thumb and inserted it into the keyhole. It was loose inside. He fiddled with it, trying to get it to catch the mechanism. Nothing. It wouldn’t turn.
Voices provoked him to look over his shoulder. Someone was talking with the guardsman posted in the corridor.
“Fuck,” he moaned under his breath. He could only see the profile of the man, but it was his voice that gave him away. Hunter recognized the sharp staccato punch he made with his words. It was the same officer who had confronted him in the bailey village.
He was trapped. He thought about doubling back, maybe ducking into one of the other rooms. But that seemed even riskier. The scribes wouldn’t know him and would question why he was there. And while Hunter walked back down the corridor to get to one of the rooms, all the officer had to do was glance up and he would have a clear shot of Hunter’s face.
Hands shaking, he fumbled with the second key. He jiggled that one around inside the lock too, but no angle or position would allow the key to catch and turn.
The officer broke off the conversation with the guardsman with a sharp “Carry on,” and Hunter heard his heavy footfalls on the wood floor. Getting louder. The officer was heading straight for him. With each clap of the bootheel, blood roared louder in Hunter’s ears.
One final key. He gripped it with white knuckles and tried to insert it into the hole, but his hand was shaking so violently he couldn’t slip it in.
He used his other hand to stabilize it and help guide the end. His chest was tight and wouldn’t allow air in, so he locked his breathing. He turned it. He felt the ends catch on the mechanism inside, and the key turned. The lock snapped, and Hunter almost passed out in relief.
He let out a breath. The officer must have been right at his neck, but he was too afraid to look. He depressed the latch with his thumb and pushed.
Nothing. The door wouldn’t move.
Fuck!
The realization struck him like a punch in the gut. The fucking door had already been unlocked. He’d just locked it. He inserted the key again and turned it back around the other way. He felt the mechanism snap again.
He thumbed the latch and pushed. The hinges moaned as the door swung inward.
Trying to act casual while sweat cascaded down his temple from underneath the too tight helmet, he stepped through the threshold into the poorly lit corridor beyond. As he swung the door closed, he saw the officer turn into one of the side rooms. Hunter hadn’t been recognized.
The door slammed shut too hard. The sound of it reverberated like thunder through the corridor. That would get someone’s attention. He locked the door again—if anyone came to investigate, the locked door would slow them down.
Hunter fell against the stone wall and tried to bring his breathing under control. His entire body quaked; his knees barely managed to keep him erect as adrenaline continued to flood his system. He had to keep going. His only option was to plunge even deeper into guard territory with no plan other than finding Dax. He’d figured out what to do once he found him—but he was going on blind faith that Dax was even here. Hand on the wall to steady himself, he shuffled down the corridor as fast as his wobbly legs would take him.
32
THE DANK stench of death and decay told Hunter he was heading in the
right direction. It was exactly what he would have expected in a dungeon, and the fetid air constricted his throat and clung to his skin.
He didn’t want to spend five minutes in here. He couldn’t imagine being locked in a cage down here.
A single tallow candle burned in a carved-out niche in the rock. Years of yellow-brown wax formed slimy tendrils down the stone. It offered only enough light for him to shuffle his way along. The passageway was cramped and dreary, and the ceiling mere inches above Hunter’s head. Hunter was stricken with a wave of hopelessness—as if he would never see the sun again.
The floor morphed into roughly carved steps that twisted downward. With a hand to the wall to steady him, he lowered each foot carefully. The staircase circled, taking him deeper.
And deeper.
He didn’t think it possible, but the smell worsened as he descended. His mouth salivated as his stomach spasmed, threatening to empty. When he was beginning to believe he would never reach the bottom, the stairwell opened into a small antechamber with a cluster of small rooms squeezing in around it. Weapons storage on one side. Swords, maces, and a variety of other sadistic implements of death hung from wooden racks on the wall. On the other side, two guards sat on crates at a round table. One male and one female. A lantern between them, they leaned in and shuffled small bone-white tiles back and forth on the surface.
Ahead, almost hidden behind a precarious stack of wooden crates, was an arched doorway.
He ducked in the weapons room and helped himself to a longsword and bandolier. In case things turned south, he told himself. And he would look more the part of a guardsman on duty. He slipped the leather strap of the bandolier over his head to let it rest on his shoulder. The weight of the sword on his hip felt oddly reassuring. Even though he knew that if this dissolved into having to use it, he’d likely end up dead.
A sound cut the grim silence of the place, a low and wretched moan that echoed off the stone. An iron clang followed. Then voices. Low at first but growing louder.
Hunter remained in the weapons room, back to the wall and out of sight.
“I’ll report to Venzura. Secure the stools at Bull’s.”
“Not buying your mead,” one grumbled.
“Gods, you spring me a coin one time, and it’s all I hear about.”
“Thrice, more like.”
Hunter leaned around the doorframe and caught a glimpse of their backs as they entered the stairwell. Before they disappeared, one reached over and hooked a ring of keys on a spike driven into the stone wall. Hunter stepped from the weapons room. The two at the table hadn’t moved or even lifted their heads from their game. Hunter wrapped his fingers around the keys to keep them from jingling and lifted the ring from the spike.
As Hunter started toward the archway, keys clenched in his white fist, something snagged the female guard’s attention away from the game. Her eyes lifted and narrowed a fraction as if some vague question piqued her. Hunter resisted the compulsion to reach for the hilt.
“Quit your stallin’,” the other guard grumbled at her. “Make your move already.”
With her lip curling in a snarl, she returned her gaze to the game, Hunter forgotten.
Hunter tried to keep a natural pace as he delved into the corridor. A short flight of stairs and through a heavy door banded with iron, and he was in the thick of the dungeon. A guard was stationed at the bottom, his shoulders to the wall. He straightened when he heard Hunter’s approach.
“Venzura has questions for one of the prisoners,” Hunter grumbled to him as he marched past.
The guardsmen nodded and relaxed, and he let his shoulders fall back against the wall.
Hunter’s blood was vibrating under his skin. His mouth was dry. He was close now. Or so he hoped. There was no guarantee Dax was even here, though it felt exactly like the place they would take him. Yet, a valuable trophy like him might be kept in a more secure location and with a heavier guard presence.
The corridor was lined with iron-banded doors. Each had small barred windows. He leaned over to peer through each as he worked his way down the corridors. The cells were cubes carved from solid stone. Some were empty. Some were filled with pathetic lumps curled into corners on the floor. None he recognized.
Filth was everywhere, at a level that was sickening. Inhumane. Bile scalded the back of Hunter’s throat. He pressed his hand to his mouth, but it did little to ward off the stench that seemed to coat his tongue and teeth. He might never get the taste out his mouth.
He could feel the guard’s eyes on his back. Trying to seem casual, he glanced back. The man was watching him with renewed interest, surely wondering why Hunter didn’t know what cell to go to.
He hurried to the end of the corridor and rounded a corner. Another row of cells.
Without the guard eyeing him, he could spend more time inspecting each cell. He found the new prisoners who had just been brought in. They had been separated but were in adjacent cells. They both pressed their bodies against opposite sides of the same rock wall.
Halfway down the corridor, Hunter found Dax.
He was huddled in a corner, naked, shoulder and head to the wall, rigid as the stone around him. Hunter’s insides twisted. It was too dark inside the cell for Hunter to see if his eyes were open, but his pale skin was a patchwork of bruising and his eye was puffy and swollen. He was almost unrecognizable. He’d been beaten. Tortured.
Clashing emotions rippled through him as if a stone had been dropped in the center of his soul. Relief flooded his brain in a euphoric wave like a drug hitting his system. His lungs cleared in one gush, and his brain felt like it had turned to vapor. He could pass out if he gave in to it. But seeing Dax so broken sent hot rage coursing through him. His heart felt cleaved at the sight of him. And the fear that he was too late, that Dax was already dead, formed a cold vacuum in his gut.
All of this came within the span of a single breath.
He looked down the corridor again, concerned that the suspicious guardsman might follow him. But the corridor was quiet except for indiscriminate moaning from a nearby cell. He fumbled with the keys and inserted the black iron teeth into the hole. It turned around one compete time and the mechanism inside the door opened with a sharp clank.
The sound seemed to ricochet around him, and Hunter cringed. He waited, air locked in his chest. But nothing happened. He pushed open the cell door, and it groaned on rusty hinges like some Halloween cliché.
He stepped into the cell, lowered himself down to next to Dax, and put two fingers under his chin against his neck.
A slow rhythm pushed against his finger.
“Hands off me, you ugly fucker,” Dax groaned.
Hunter wanted to cheer, wanted to swoop Dax up into his arms and squeeze him until his eyes bulged. He wanted to lift him into his arms and carry him right out of the hideous place. But instead he pulled his fingers away and crossed his arms “Ugly? That’s the thanks I get?”
Dax opened one eye. He looked up at Hunter with a brow knotted in confusion.
Hunter tore off his helm and tossed it aside with a clang. “If I had a mirror, I’d show you, in fact, who the ugly one is right now. You have had better days.” Heart near bursting, Hunter couldn’t contain his smile any longer. His face broke into a goofy grin born of relief and joy.
Dax swallowed as recognition dawned in his eyes, which widened into uncharacteristic astonishment. Hunter couldn’t help but revel for a moment in for once surprising him with what he could do. “How…?”
“Long story, not important now.” Driven by impulse, Hunter cupped Dax’s face in his hands and pressed lips against his. Dax’s lips were dry and cracked, but still warm and full against his own. Surprise gave way to release, and Dax pushed in to accept Hunter’s lips, albeit weakly. The taste of Dax pushed away the ghastly smells around him and hijacked his brain like a heady cologne.
The metallic bite of Dax’s blood was on his tongue. Reluctantly, he broke the connection between them. “I hav
e to get you out of here.”
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I wasn’t going to let you die here.”
“Too dangerous. They knew I was coming. They were waiting for me.”
“We know. Can you walk?”
Dax closed his eyes, his mouth twisted into an expression that Hunter couldn’t read. “Give me a moment.” He shifted and pushed himself up higher on the wall.
“A lot has happened,” Hunter said. “We’ll talk on the way.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Getting in here was the plan.”
Dax shook his head. “I said you were going to get me killed one day.”
“Such confidence. I got in, didn’t I? We’ll get out.” He just needed to get to the northern wall again and get Dax through that door. With any luck, no one had discovered the bound guard yet. “We just need to figure out the small detail of how to get you past the guards and through the barracks without being seen.”
Dax rolled his head back and forth. “There’s another way. Through the dungeon. The other way. When I was dragged off to be interrogated, I saw them come through. Servants. From the kitchens.”
“From the castle?”
Dax nodded.
“Are you sure?” Then there was a way into the dungeons from inside. He’d only missed it. Probably wasn’t well marked for obvious reasons. Traipsing through the castle with Dax was only a moderately better option. He wouldn’t be easy to pass off as anything but a tortured prisoner.
But then, Hunter was dressed as a guard.
Dax seemed to stall about halfway to his feet, his shoulder dropping to the grimy stone wall. Hunter put a hand under Dax’s arm to lift him the rest of the way. Dax kept his hand against the stone, and he dropped his head as if he might be sick.
“I can carry you,” he asked.
Dax gave him a side-eyed glance. “That’s certainly won’t look suspicious. Drag me out, like you’re taking me to get interrogated.”
Hunter winced. He didn’t think he could do that and make it look convincing enough.