by Raven Dark
I gave her a nod. Now we just had to get the cage low enough for her to jump down. Then we’d make our way into the trees, and hopefully back to the Legion waiting on the hill.
“You’ll have to jump down once I lower the cage,” I whispered.
She nodded. Then she looked around at the other cages. “Setora.” She glanced up at me, her eyes pleading.
My stomach clenched. I was about to shake my head no, but the snoring from a cage beside hers stopped and someone cursed softly.
I turned my head.
My gaze collided with the captive in the next cage. A man’s face stared at me, sharp silvery eyes not unlike Doc’s, filled with pain and hope. And utter shock.
A man. Confusion moved sluggishly through me. The blurry vision was already fading, so I wasn’t seeing things.
Male captives were rare, and when they weren’t outright killed, they were tortured in a show of power and intimidation. Keeping them was another way the Dregs showed themselves to be far from typical pirates.
I glanced at the other cages before I could stop myself.
Women were huddled in some of them, lying in others, but a closer look revealed most of the hostages to be men. Some of the women looked unharmed, but for most of the captives, bruises discolored their skin. All of them had matted hair, the men’s faces covered with long, thick beards, some growing to their chests. Most were naked. The few who had clothing wore garments tattered and worn, some crusted with dirt and blood.
By my guess, only about eight of the cages held females, but they were no better off. Black eyes, bloodied noses, and scarred skin peeked out from between the cages’ wicker strips. Horrible burn marks covered arms and backs and legs, one or two with burns on their faces, old and new.
I could have let out another string of Cherry’s curses.
Horror and sympathy overwhelmed, crushing me. Especially when a few of them saw me, and their hands reached out.
A woman with a missing eye stared at me, begging in silence. The red, puffy tissue surrounding her eye suggested the wound couldn’t have been more than a week old.
I looked at Emmy, then back at the one-eyed woman, then at the silver-eyed man, assessing him.
An idea—a horrible idea—took hold. If he could get to the others and open their cages…if he did this right…
“Sheriff’s going to kill me,” I muttered under my breath.
Muscles tight with something close to terror, I went back to the tree trunk, pulling the rope that hung there so that Emmy’s cage lowered to within four feet of the ground. I helped her out of the cage and hurried her behind the tree.
“We can’t just leave them,” she said.
“Stay there.” I slunk over to the tree where Silver Eyes hung and looked back at Emmy. She gave me an encouraging nod.
I went up the tree and across the branch, then leaned down toward the man. He looked up through the roof of the cage.
The branch under me bowed dangerously and groaned. I froze.
“Who the hell are you?” he murmured, looking stunned.
I knew what he was really asking. How had a woman managed this?
Ignoring the question, I unlocked his cage and then started crawling back toward the trunk of the tree. The man carefully moved to the door of the cage, ready to jump. The cage swayed and creaked. The branch bowed again.
There was a horrible crack.
I felt the branch go out from under me. The ground and the cage rushed up at us. I slammed into the forest floor with a resounding crash, landing on my shoulder, tangled with the crumpled cage and its former inhabitant.
“Fuck,” I heard Emmy say before she rushed out from behind the tree to help us. I gestured at her to stay hidden, but it was too late.
“Ohh, lookie here.” Several Dregs gathered around us, one of them with crooked, yellowed teeth grinning at us. “Saketh,” he cackled. “General Saketh! We have company.”
Footsteps sounded from everywhere, men talking at once. In an instant, a group of more than ten Dregs gathered around us. I grabbed Silver Eyes and helped him to his feet.
I doubted a plan could have gone more awry than this one.
One of the men shoved Emmy to the ground. Another two pushed me and Silver Eyes to our stomachs, one of them pinning the man down with a boot on his back.
“What’s all this fucking shouting about?” a familiar voice snapped.
Saketh pushed his way to the front of the crowd. That wild, bright blue mohawk stood out in the night like it was coated with biolight. When he saw us, an ugly, cruel grin split his face.
“Well, what have we here, boys? An infiltrator?”
The Dreg who’d put Silver Eyes down stepped away from him. Silver Eyes didn’t move, remaining on his stomach, but there was a tension in him that said he was anything but submissive.
“A new slave?” Saketh mocked, visibly taking in my Dreg disguise. “I think not.” He snatched a cane from one of the men near him and stepped forward, putting the end of it under my chin. “Get up,” he ordered with a frightening coldness.
Emmy and Silver Eyes both started to get up before I was halfway to my feet.
“Leave her alone—” Emmy started.
The man who’d first pushed us down, with one side of his head shaved and the other spiked in bright red, slapped Emmy in the face so hard she spun and landed on the ground on her belly. “Shut it, bitch.”
Another Dreg, with a chain from his nose to his ear, kicked Silver Eyes in the back, sending him flat. “Stay down, worm.”
I wanted to help Emmy, but doing so would only make it worse, so I focused on Saketh’s leather-clad frame, rising slowly to my feet. Biding my time.
There was no way to let my masters know we were in trouble. Did they know? They had to by now.
When I stood before him, Saketh stalked like a predatory wolf toward me. He slid the end of the cane under my chin again and lifted it up, examining my face, my eyes.
Recognition twisted his lips into a dark smile. “I know you. Ohh, this is perfect. You’re one of the Legion’s women, aren’t you? You were with them at Oasis, right?”
As bad as this was, it could have been worse. Apparently, the acrin that Dreg had been smoking hadn’t changed my eye color; if it had, Saketh would have been reacting differently. He inspected my eyes, but also the rest of me, the way one does with livestock, and he wasn’t staring at me like one would with a Violet, as if I was a prized brood mare.
Had there not been enough of the chemical to affect my eye color, or had I not been exposed to enough of it?
I kept my eyes averted, giving him a practiced cowed look, as if there was nothing special to see there.
“What is your name, slave?” His face was so close to mine, the moonshine on his breath made my head swim.
“Onyx, sir,” I replied.
“How did she get in here?” The man smoking the acrin said behind him.
Saketh glared at him and the rest of the men. “She got in here because the lot of you were too busy getting off, getting wasted, or shitting yourselves stupid,” he said mildly.
Several of his men tensed or stepped back.
He turned back to me. “There are better questions to ask.” He traced my cheek with his finger. A ring covered the whole finger, ending in a sharp point that grazed my skin. “Like where your masters are.”
“I’m alone,” I said too quickly.
His eyes blazed with wild danger. “So you’re a liar as well as a thief.”
“My masters are not here,” I managed more smoothly.
“The Dark Legion is one of the most infamous pirate gangs in this part of the world. Rarely seen, in fact. And yet they let their woman come into our domain alone?”
He jabbed the end of the cane under my chin.
“Where are they? Where is the Legion?”
My mind raced for an answer that wouldn’t expose my masters. If I could buy them time, they might be able to figure out a way to regain the advant
age. The advantage they no longer had because I’d played hero.
Saketh grabbed my hair in his fist, pulling so hard I almost cried out. His teeth were clenched. “Where are they?”
Before I could answer, he turned to his men.
“Find them,” he snarled. “Now. Bring them to me!”
“That won’t be necessary, Saketh.”
Hawk’s voice washed over me, calm as glass, stoic as stone, yet rumbling with protectiveness. For me.
Saketh spun around. Hawk stood a few feet from him with his back against a tree. He stood where the campfire’s light didn’t reach, the darkness reducing him to a huge shadow, making him look like something out of a fantastic dream. Dressed in all black, I could see how he’d gone unnoticed.
I closed my eyes, relief sweeping through me so intense it made my knees weak. Never had I heard such a perfect sound as his voice or seen such a perfect sight as him right then.
“Who the fuck?” Saketh bit out, looking at the top of the tree that Hawk must have jumped down from.
Hawk dusted a leaf from his shoulder. His amber eyes flashed in the firelight. My stomach dropped when six men grabbed him at once. He let them pin his hands behind his back, his face expressionless. Two of the men patted him down.
“I’m not armed,” he said quietly.
“He’s not,” one of the men holding him said with a laugh. “You came in here unarmed?”
“Bring him here.” Saketh was still gripping my hair. Hawk’s mouth turned down when he saw the Dreg leader yank me around, pulling harder, but Hawk gave no other reaction.
The Dregs marched him over to Saketh, and someone kicked Hawk so that he dropped to his knees. Hawk knelt without any resistance.
“Why would he walk in here unarmed?” the same man demanded. “Where are your friends, trespasser?”
Saketh walked slowly over to him, taking his time. He bent down, looking closely at Hawk’s eyes, examining the rest of him—his calm stance, the way he knelt with his hands on his knees, the way I’d seen Yantu warriors do in picture books and paintings.
Saketh put his palms on the top of his cane. “He’s not unarmed,” he growled at his men. “He’s a Yantu. The body is a weapon. Isn’t that right?” He addressed my master. “Hawk, isn’t it? I heard your general call you that.”
Hawk said nothing. His eyes found mine, with a look of calm reassurance. I blinked to tell him I understood. I thought I did.
It caught me by surprise how intelligent this Dreg leader was. Not a good omen. Hawk and the others had pegged these people wrong.
Saketh turned to me with a mocking smile. “Your master has come to save you. Why? You must be one special slave.” He stalked to me and shoved me to my knees. Hawk grimaced, but otherwise remained as stone on his knees in front of me.
“He came here alone,” someone announced from somewhere else in the camp. “The other ones aren’t here.”
“Maybe. He could take half of us singlehandedly. Couldn’t you, warrior?”
“I won’t fight you, Saketh.”
I stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. No, he had a plan. But what was it? I looked at him, silently asking where the others were. His eyes flickered around the camp, the faintest shift of movement, but I saw it.
They were surrounding the camp. I’d just have to wait till it all played out.
At Hawk’s words, some of the men swore and called him a liar.
Saketh jabbed his cane into Hawk’s chest, hard. Hawk barely moved. “He allowed himself to be captured,” Saketh said mildly. “Tell me, warrior. How long before your friends ambush us? Six to one, no less. I’m guessing your friends are the ones who poisoned our ale and turned my men’s bowels to shit. I’m also guessing your general is waiting for the right time to barrel in. Where is he?”
“You have me. That’s enough. Release my slave, and I will do what you ask.”
“Oh, no. No, no, I don’t think so. General?” Saketh called. When no one answered, he roared, “Geeeeneral! Come to me! I want you at my feet while I take your woman up the ass!”
Sheriff didn’t appear. Neither did the others.
Saketh grabbed my face. “What’s so special about her, Hawk? What man comes for a slave?” He glared at my master without looking at me.
My eyes widened. In the armor that covered Saketh’s shoulder, I caught the slightly distorted image of my face. Including my eyes.
Which were a bright, pale purple.
Saketh released me and threw up his arms. “Well, General?” he shouted. “Come for your slave, or watch my men tear her up!”
While he talked, Hawk caught my eye, and his brow rose infinitesimally.
I bowed my head, shaking my hair until it fell in front of my face. How long could I keep the Dregs from noticing?
Still, Sheriff didn’t appear, and new relief flooded me.
“Let us go look for them, General,” one of Saketh’s men said.
“No.” His voice was like gravel. “He will come. If not for his slave, then his second in command.” He tapped Hawk’s patch, the one that labeled him as Captain of the Guard.
Saketh grabbed a knife from his belt and put it under Hawk’s chin. “Up.”
Hawk rose smoothly to his feet. Saketh walked slowly in behind him, leaving the blade against his throat.
Panic started to well up. Saketh grinned over Hawk’s shoulder at me. “Does a Yantu’s blood come out red like yours, slave? If I slit his throat, then what will the Legion do?”
“Don’t…” The word came out shaky.
He lifted a pierced brow. “He matters to you.”
Maker, if I’d had Hawk’s stoicism, I could have stood there and given no reaction, but I didn’t. I shook my head in apology for him. “Leave him alone. Please.”
The faint hint of a smile touched Hawk’s mouth, his eyes softening.
“Think of all the things I could do to him. And that’s before I make him and his friends watch me fuck you.”
“You won’t be doing anything to anyone, Saketh.”
Sheriff?
The Dreg leader froze.
“Drop the knife, fuckface.”
Saketh’s face twisted in anger, but he lifted his hands slowly and let the blade drop to the ground. Then he stepped slowly sideways from Hawk.
Sheriff stood behind Saketh with a sword pointed at the leader’s back. “Kick the knife away.”
Saketh did as he was told.
How had Sheriff gotten there, and why weren’t ten of the Dregs on him? I glanced minutely around. On the outer edges of the camp, Pretty Boy, Steel, and T-Man each held a Dreg hostage. T-Man held his man’s hands behind his back, Steel had another by the scruff of his neck, and Pretty Boy had a sword to the neck of another. All the other men stood too still.
Somehow, the rest of the group had managed to sneak in and take enough of the Dregs by surprise, preventing the others from interfering long enough for Sheriff to get to Saketh. Now, no one would dare move, lest he kill their leader.
Joy nearly made me sway on my feet. They were here, all of them.
But as soon as Sheriff backed up and took his blade from Saketh’s neck, Saketh rolled across the ground, took up his blade, and threw it right into the head of the man Steel was holding.
“What the fuck?” Steel dropped him, staring at Saketh.
Two things happened at once. Two men knocked Steel to his knees while the man Pretty Boy held at sword-point impaled himself on my blond master’s sword. At the same, the other one T-Man held, wrenched the blade from his hand and slit it across his own throat.
“Maker fuck me,” T-Man bit out, lifting his hands when someone put a sword to his back.
Pretty Boy looked skyward and dropped his sword when two of the men grabbed his arms. “Fuck. You and your men are batshit, Saketh.”
Saketh grinned, turned slowly to Sheriff and took the sword calmly from him. He held the sword across his chest like a trophy and nodded to two of his men. “Tie them all up.
”
Hawk flashed the Dreg a rare scowl, tensing like he meant to hit him, and Saketh smiled at him.
“Are you going to give me grief, warrior?”
Hawk looked at me with regret. Then he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Saketh clapped him on the shoulder with a mocking camaraderie and leaned into him.
“Now that all of you belong to me, I’ll arrange for you to put those fighting skills to use. I’d love to see a Yantu fight.”
Hawk gave one of those rare half smiles. “Bring it on. I’d love to run you through.”
Saketh’s eyes gleamed with delight. He watched while his men started tying the Dark Legion’s hands behind their backs and putting them on their knees in front of him. He winked at me before turning to the others. “There will be a fight. My men and I have been itching for some entertainment. We’ve been preparing for tomorrow’s auction for months. This is going to be a hell of a party.”
“What are the stakes, Saketh?” Sheriff demanded. “What kind of fight are we talking about?”
He pointed his cane at him and shrugged. “Cutting up and burning these townfolk gets boring.” He gestured to the cages above us, to the men and women still there. Then he clasped his hands behind him and walked among the Dark Legion.
“The best of the Dark Legion on their knees before us like pussies at auction.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe his luck. “What I’m looking for is something truly spectacular. A gladiator fight.”
I caught Sheriff’s eye, hoping he could see the apology in my gaze.
His face was so deadpan, I couldn’t tell what he thought. My heart plummeted with shame at being the catalyst of this nightmare we were in.
“Here’s what will happen,” Saketh told us. “General, your best man will face off with my best fighter. A fight to the death.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Yes, it will, because if it doesn’t…” He pointed at me and Emmy, looking at her as if he’d just realized she belonged to the Legion along with me. “They’ll both die. After my men ride them for hours.”