“A man? What was his name?” he asked dryly.
“I’m not sure, but it sounded like Xano or something like that. He was raging because he said that Shauna killed his brother.”
“Did he hit her?” Caleb asked through his teeth.
Uriel grabbed her dagger from her hip without taking her eyes off the prison that was a short distance away. “He wouldn’t have stopped if it weren’t for Raylen. When Raylen left, Xano tried to kill her again. He told her to beg for her life, from what I heard.”
“He’ll be the one begging by the time I’m done with him.” Caleb rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. “Did you get the name of the third tier?”
“I couldn’t see him, but his name was Hydric . That’s the name that the guards were calling when Xano almost killed Shauna.”
Caleb checked his belt to make sure that his dagger was on his hip. “You ready?” he asked.
Uriel nodded. They peered through the brush across the path that separated them from the prison. Torches were attached to the side of the building, slanted forward by their metal holders. The spirits seemed to beckon him towards the building, but he waited for the chance.
“Tell me how many guards you see.”
“Three.”
“That’s how many I count,” he said, pointing to them. Two leaned casually against the building, and one carried some packages in from a carriage that was stationed in front to the right of the building.
“Wait for for the guard with the supplies to go back inside. When I shoot, you go,” he said in a soft voice. “On me.”
He eased an arrow out of his quiver, touched the tip in the Naturalist Anaerobia, took a deep breath, and set the arrow in the bowstring. The muscles in his shoulders tightened, bracing themselves for the release. The spirits stopped and hovered nearby, waiting. The breeze nudged him forward, and a a few leaves drifted from the canopy, tossed about by the wind.
“Guide Shot,” he whispered to himself.
The arrow slit through the air and sliced through the guard on the left, pinning him to the door. The Anaerobia activated, and he couldn’t bring himself to scream. The other guard, pushed himself off the wall, and started to run inside. Uriel slung her knife, and spinning, it stuck in the side of his neck. He fell to the ground, holding his throat, hoping to no avail, that his life would not escape him. His silent gargles could not be heard.
Caleb and Uriel crossed the path dividing them from the prison, making sure to keep low to the ground. The Naturalist Anaerobia was wearing off the guy who Caleb shot, so Caleb clasped his dagger and drove it through the man’s thick coat. The guard stopped writhing and lay still beneath the torchlight that burned nervously above them. Caleb dragged the guard's body to the side of the building, and Uriel did the same with the other guy after she got her knife back.
“You guys could help me out,” said a man laughing from inside the prison.
Caleb crouched low at the doorway, waiting for the man to come back to get the supplies.
“Where are you guys?” the man asked.
Caleb put his finger over his lips to keep Uriel quiet. She nodded and kneeled even lower, pressing her shoulder into the side of the building. The man’s footsteps got closer to the exit. Caleb clenched his teeth, trying not to move.
“Are you guys still there?” The man peeked around the corner of the door. “Who the…”
Caleb grabbed the man by his arm and jammed his knife in the guard’s chin, throwing him to the ground as Uriel finished him off before his body landed.
“You wait here,” Caleb whispered.
“No way. I’m going with you,” she said.
“Watch the door in case someone else comes.”
Uriel pursed her lips together and punched her leg with her fist, but she knew Caleb was right. He went forward, quietly closing the door behind as he entered.
To his right was the door to the office, and he could hear several guards cackling behind the solid metal door. Each outburst was a mocking of how he had been imprisoned by these same Polarist savages. Their laughter banged around in his head like sneering jests. No one should be captured by these brutes, especially not Shauna. There was no way she could survive the extreme temperatures.
He grasped his bow, ducked underneath the grated window, and crept along to see if any other guards were wandering the halls. His boots rubbed loudly against the stone floor, so he picked up his feet to hush each step as he passed by the doorway.
The torches over his head lit up the hallway, and he considered burning them out, but he didn’t want to alert the guards. Down the corridor, the building bended to the left. That must have been where the cells were.
He peeked around the corner, and a guard stood in front of a solitary cell against the back wall of the prion, taunting the person inside. “You’re as good as dead, little lady. It must be freezing in that cell of yours, and unless you tell us where the Wanderers are, I can’t see you lasting more than a few more days.”
“I-I-I will n-n-never tell you, a-a-nything,” said the woman. Her voice chattered from the cold.
It was Shauna. He was sure of it. Caleb gritted his teeth and set a Naturalist charged arrow in his bow. The lights overhead flickered, and the sounds of the guards laughing faded out of his mind as he concentrated on the shot. He closed one eye, silently pulling back on the bowstring.
“What the...? Guards!” the man yelled.
Caleb fired the arrow. It sliced through the man’s thick coat, and he fell to the ground, convulsing from the shot. The metal door behind Caleb flew open, and four soldiers spilled out into the hallway, cutting him off from the exit.
The temperature dropped rapidly. Caleb charged a Materialist arrow and shot it at one of the guards. The man shielded himself from the attack with an ice block that he created from the life forms around him. The ice exploded from the impact, but the guard was unharmed.
A thick sheet of ice formed around Caleb, enclosing him in a frozen shell. He doused his blade into the Materialist canister and jabbed it into the frozen liquid. The ice crumbled into thick chunks. He shot two Spiritualist arrows down the corridor, both slicing through one man. The Anaerobia activated and spirits growled as they surfaced. But the cold was too thick. The apparitions retreated back into the spiritual plane.
“Uriel!” he yelled. The front door swung open, and the enraged woman jumped one guard’s back, stabbing him profusely as he collapsed to the ground.
“Xano! Get the girl!” ordered one of the two remaining guards.
“She won’t get away from me, Hydric!”
Xano turned and chased Uriel out of the building. The door slammed behind them. Caleb shot a Naturalist arrow down the hallway as he sprinted towards Hydric. A slither of ice spurted from the ground and froze the arrow in mid air. Caleb dove at Hydric, tackling the lanky man to the ground. He raised his fist to pound in the Polarist’s face, but the man was grinning.
His grin got larger, and the whites of his teeth gleamed at Caleb. Caleb struck the man across the face. Blood trickled down Hydric’s nose, but he kept smiling. Caleb hit him again and again. Sweat poured down Caleb’s face, and then his temperature dropped. More sweat covered his body, and then Caleb shivered from the chill. His head started spinning from the nausea. His attacks became less powerful. Hydric was raising and lowering the temperature, making Caleb nauseous.
Hydric tossed Caleb off of him and stood to his feet, wiping the blood away from his face. The torches overhead shifted Hydric’s shadow in multiple directions, making Caleb’s head swirl even more.
“You really thought that you, a Wanderer, could actually kill me?” Hydric blew blood out of his nose and spat on the ground. He squatted next to Caleb’s shivering body and stared at Caleb face to face. “You were wrong.”
Hydric looked at his own hand and rubbed his fingertips together. Then he pushed his finger into Caleb’s skin. Caleb’s temperature shot up. The dizziness was unbearable. The room cycloned around him.
“You were so wrong!” Hydric grabbed Caleb’s face by his jaws and ripped all the heat from Caleb’s cheeks. His face turned pale and splotches of purple plastered themselves to the surface of his skin.
His teeth ached, and it felt like each of them was being torn from his mouth. Small ice particles formed on the tip of his tongue, and he lost the feeling in his gums. Then a wave of fiery heat invaded his body from head to toe.
“Puke if you want,” said Hydric through his teeth. “I’ll allow it.”
Caleb resisted the urge, but his body retched violently on the floor.
“No? How about more?”
More waves of cold and heat intruded Caleb's body. His hairs stood on end, and his skin shriveled together. Then beads of sweat rolled down his neck.
“Still none? Maybe next time.” Hydric picked up Caleb’s head and slammed it against the stone floor. The nausea and the pain combined, and Caleb’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. Hydric stood and tapped the toe of his boot on Caleb’s forehead. “Nah-uh. Wake up, you piece of filth.”
Caleb forced himself to look up and focus on the man’s face, but the last thing he saw was the heel of Hydric’s boot ramming down on his head. Caleb plummeted into unconsciousness.
=====
“-leb. Caleb.”
Caleb rolled into consciousness at the sound of someone calling his name, but the light was too bright for him to fully open his eyes. He squinted, looking around. His body was cold and numb, and his muscles would not stop trembling.
“Caleb.”
A hand touched the side of his head, and he jumped up. He moved too fast. His head pounded, and he smothered his face in his hands while clenching his head to make the pain stop.
“Caleb.”
“Wha…?”
“It’s m-m-me. Shauna.”
The image of her spiraled from three figures into one as he focused on her. His chin vibrated from the cold. She was sitting in a chair, dressed in the Polarist garb, holding herself tightly to keep from freezing. Her dark black hair glistened with accumulated pieces of ice.
“I-I-I don’t think I can last much l-longer in here.”
He massaged his jaw from the pain, looking around the room. Streams of water ran down the stone walls, but the water was frozen in place, and icicles stared down at them from the ceiling. He stood to his feet, but his legs refused to wake up. He kicked them loose to get the blood flowing again.
“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning in towards her.
She jerked her face away from his hand so that he couldn’t see the bruises. “I’ve been through w-worse.” Her blistered lips stuck together with her words.
Caleb reached towards her and winced at the pain in his shoulder. He pushed her hair back to reveal the wounds. “Those animals. Look what they did to you.” He cupped her chin in his quivering hands. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“W-we can’t tell them where the Wanderers are, but t-that’s the only way.”
“We’ll figure this out, but first stand up.” He grabbed her hand and lifted her to her feet. “You have to move around. You can’t just sit there.” He had been through his before. The cold was nothing new to him, but watching Shauna go through this ripped away any morale that he had left. He rubbed her arms arduously to get her temperature up. “You have to keep moving.” He picked up one foot at a time, walking in place.
Uneasily, she followed his lead. “It’s just s-so cold. I can’t take it anymore. They wanted to know how you harnessed the p-power of the emblems. I didn't tell them anything.”
Caleb’s eyes widened. He whipped around in all directions, ignoring the dizziness. His heart raced, and he patted down his pants and hips. “My belt. They took my belt!”
“Your b-belt?”
“The one with the canisters. If they figure out about the Anaerobia, the Pioneers will be exposed.” He wobbled to the doorway, still shaking his legs loose, and he grabbed the bars on the window. “Hey! Hey!” He kicked the door to get the guard’s attention.
“P-please. Stop. I can’t t-take anymore...abuse.” She slumped back down in the chair.
He turned to Shauna but kept banging on the door, calling for the guards. They couldn’t be allowed to keep his belt for any reason. The torchlight scurried away as heavy footsteps dragged across the floor around the corner.
“You best be stepping back from the door or you might end up like that heifer over there.”
“You let us out of here or you will be dead by morning.”
“That’s a mighty lofty goal for someone as lowly as yourself, you no-emblem-having-waste-of-a-life.”
“What did you do to Uriel?” Caleb asked as he pressed his face against the bars.
“You mean the girl you came with?” A sly grin eased its way onto his face. “She apparently wasn’t as fast as she thought she was.”
Caleb could feel the animosity rising within him. “You killed her?” His voice was weak, and he asked a question that he already knew the answer to.
“She’s a very good screamer. You two better start talking or else you’ll go as unpeaceably as she did.” The man put his hands on his hips with a sense of underserved accomplishment and pointed at Shauna. “You’ll break soon enough.”
“You better hope I n-never get out of here, X-xano,” Shana stuttered.
“You won’t. There’s no need to hope,” said Xano with a sinister chuckle.
“Where’s my belt, you savage?” asked Caleb, still holding onto the bars.
“Oh this old thing?” the man laughed and held up the five canisters laced through with a leather waistband. “I think I’ll hold onto it for a little while longer. I’m sure Raylen would like to get his hands on this. He should be here tomorrow. Then you can ask him if he wants you to have it.”
“Too bad you’ll be dead by then.”
Xano looked at the ground and kicked his boots on the floor. Then he looked at Caleb through the grate. “Empty threats lead to untimely deaths.” Streams of ice snaked out of the ground near Shauna’s chair and slithered around her legs. She tried to kick them off, but the more she struggled, the more entangled she became.
“C-Caleb. Help….” Her voice was feeble.
Caleb rushed over to her trying to keep her from shaking through the cold. He pried the ice off, and his fingers numbed from the chill. “Look at me, Shauna. You have to fight back.”
“There’s n-nothing left to fight with….”
The ice crept up her body, and Caleb held her hand. Even though he too was freezing, her fingers felt like icicles to him. “Shauna don’t go. You have to hang on.” Tears filled his eyes , and he wiped them away on the back of his wrist.
“C-Caleb. This is it for m-me. I c-can’t hold on.” Her hands stopped shaking and her eyes closed softly. Her head rested forward.
“Shauna. Shauna.” He shook her arm. His jaw dropped, and his eyes widened.
A laugh echoed inside the cell. It was Xano. The chuckle was like poison to Caleb’s ears. His body absorbed the toxin, and it fueled his anger. This is what Gardiv meant when he said that the old man nearly drove him mad. This was the type of laugh that Gardiv had heard for months in his prison. Now, here in his cell, Caleb was enduring the same taunting.
Caleb ran back to the door and slammed his shoulder against it. The metal rattled throughout the hallways. “What did you do!”
The man’s laugh got louder. “I gave her what she deserved.”
“Let me out!” Caleb growled. He kicked the door several times. Bang! Bang! Bang! “Let me out! I’ll kill you!” Bang! BOOM!
Caleb stumbled back from the door. The last bang, that wasn’t from him. What was it? What happened? Xano stopped laughing and rushed to the entrance. The last bang...it sounded like...an explosion. BOOM! Another loud blast tore into the side of the building, and the crumbling sound of stone rolled through the chamber.
What was happening? Caleb hurried back to Shauna. “Shauna, you have to wake
up. You can’t sleep or you’ll die.” There was no answer.
BOOM! Another explosion.
=====
Sarai crouched low in the bush across the path from the prison. She fired another arrow. BOOM! The blast slung rocks high in the air. Those savages would not make Caleb endure through their torture again. She would not allow it.
“You sure he’s on the other side?” Sarai asked.
“Positive,” Uriel replied. Two men ran outside to flee the building before it collapsed. “The one on the right is Xano, and the other is Hydric. Hydric seems to be the leader.”
Sarai nodded, mechanically loading another arrow, charging it with the Naturalist Anaerobia. The green fluid lit up the night as it zipped into Xano’s leg. He fell to the ground, convulsing and grunting.
“Come out, you coward!” yelled Hydric. He tossed his pale hair backwards and clapped his hands together. Trails of ice speeded across the rough terrain and climbed up the trees. The temperature dropped, and the sound of crackling limbs and branches filled the forested region. He snatched his hands apart, and the trees split in half. Shrapnel littered the air, and the hefty trunks shattered into thousands of splinters.
“Run!” Sarai yelled as she dragged Uriel out of the chaos. Uriel could barely move. The display of power was overwhelming. They bolted from the trees and ran into the street, exposing themselves to their attackers.
Sarai nicked herself and Uriel with a Materialist charged dagger to keep their temperature through The Deficit. She dumped her dagger in the Materialist Anaerobia and flung it at Hydric. He shielded his body with a sheet of ice. The dagger stuck into the shell and shattered it, leaving Hydric untouched.
“Curse the day that a Wanderer defeats me!” taunted Hydric.
Xano rose to his knees. His hands froze over and he punched the ground vehemently. Sharp ice columns erupted around the two women. Sarai rolled away as one ice spike shot up from beneath her.
She shook off the shock of the havoc and sprinted away from the prison. Ice columns jutted out of the ground, chasing her down the road. She ripped out four arrows to start the Domination Volley, shooting backwards: first a Spiritualist shot, then a Polarist, then the Naturalist, then the Materialist.
Infused (Book 2 of The Pioneers Saga) Page 15