“Take it slow,” a girl’s voice whispered somewhere to his right. “You are still bleeding.”
But when Sorin turned and looked through the bars to see her, he thought his eyes were deceiving him still. The figure was small, near twelve winters of age, with short, shaggy hair that might have once been blonde if not for the filth and grease coating it. Oversized dark brown rags hung from her waif-like frame, ripped and ragged and stained beyond repair. She was sitting with her back against the stone wall, her grimy hands hanging limp from where her forearms rested on her tucked knees. Eyes as blue as the clear sky pierced his own with obvious interest, but the brown bags underneath spoke of misery and despair. If she was a girl, she had the most convincing disguise of a poor boy he had ever seen.
Sorin reached up to the back of his head and the sticky mass of his hair matted over a large bump the size of a chicken egg met his touch. He pushed on it gently, and pain lanced through his head again, threatening to bury him once more under darkness.
“Not too bright, are ye?” she said, shaking her head reprovingly. “Leave it alone. Ye’ll be a lot better off too, I’d wager, if ye stay awake.”
He ignored her. Taking in his new surroundings, Sorin tried to make sense of what was happening. Thomas and he had come into the city and purchased a room for a night, leading to a visit from a woman who knew him. Then, two unsavory thugs had cornered Sorin, and one of them knocked him out with a blow. Was the woman part of the ruse to capture him? Did the two men work for her? He did not think so. His captors spoke of someone else, some Watchman, a person whose interest was fixed on Thomas.
If that were true, Sorin was an innocent bystander to Thomas’s past, a past the old man had refused to share with him. He grew angry at the prospect Thomas’s silence might now hinder Sorin from finding a way out of the predicament in which he found himself.
Pushing off the stone floor of the cell, his body screaming as though it were on fire, Sorin slowly got to his feet. In the cell to his left, an old man slept, his faint, steady wheezing the only sign he was alive. Another man with short black hair was shackled to the wall so tightly there was no slack in the chains he hung limply from. The other two cells that made up the row were empty, the four of them the only people imprisoned in the skinny, rectangular room.
Four torches were set in sconces against the opposite wall and hanging under them were dozens of different tools and weapons, their cool steel glinting in the crimson light, all razor sharp and waiting. No sound other than the old man’s ruined breathing was heard, the world outside completely silent. The bars extended from the floor to the ceiling, and after giving them a good, firm shake that rattled his aching head even more, Sorin sat back against the wall and took a steadying breath to think.
“No way out,” the girl broke the silence, still watching him.
“Where are we?” he asked, licking his cracked lips to lend moisture his mouth did not have. “Is this some kind of city prison?”
The girl snorted. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t be here. Those cells easy to escape from. No, this the personal dungeon of the Watchman.” She paused, seeing the confusion in his face. “What’d you do, draw the attention of the city’s crime lord?”
Sorin knew little about city life and what went on in its underbelly, but based on how the girl said it, he understood it was not good. And the situation he found himself in was worse.
“I didn’t do anything,” Sorin said, emphasizing each word. “I had only just arrived when I was hit over the head and brought here.”
“Then you lie or ain’t tellin’ the entire truth,” she said with a stony look. “If ye are here, ye crossed him in some way.”
Sorin rubbed the spots where his wrists had been tied. The girl was tough. From her appearance, Sorin guessed she was a street kid, one who had spent a great deal of time in the seedy depths of Aris Shae and had learned to survive or die. If she had been caught, she must have done something to deserve it.
“What does he want with me?” he asked. When he looked down again, he saw the stone floor he had been lying on was stained with ages of crimson. “And why are you here?”
“You have a better idea of what he wants wit you. Ye offended him, and now he will make ye pay. The Watchman already has anything he desires. Those he brings here, he makes them pay in pain,” she whispered. She then turned her back to him, and lifting her shirt showed angry welts that blazed across her back like crimson ribbons. Turning back with a grimace, she asked, “See those instruments on the wall?”
Sorin did. It was all she had to say. The Watchman—whoever he was—enjoyed torture. If Thomas had wronged this monster in the past, it stood to reason Sorin’s captor would harm him in some way by association or use him against Thomas. Crime had eyes everywhere in a city this size, and the likelihood someone with wicked intent saw them enter the city was good. The two thugs who had kidnapped Sorin probably got a reward for their efforts. Sorin knew he had to learn as much about the situation as he could if he were to be released. He had no doubt Thomas would be looking for him, but how would the old man find him? Sorin would have to rely solely on himself.
He suddenly patted his clothing. The knife Thomas had given him was gone.
“This Watchman doesn’t bring just anyone here, does he?” Sorin asked, his head clearing a bit. He glanced around the room meaningfully. “Only those who have seriously offended him are brought here, right? So what’d the others do to warrant it?”
“The fellow hangin’ at the far end, a Ward of the Kingdom,” she said, and Sorin strained to view him better. A stack of burnished-steel armor lay in the corner of the man’s cell as some sort of reminder. “I don’t know what he did, but safe to assume he either defended the Kingdom at the Watchman’s detriment or he was a dirty guard who didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. The Watchman broke both of his legs a few days ago. The Ward howled from the pain before passing out. That’s why he hangs there—still unconscious. He won’t last much longer.”
“What’d you do?”
A defiant glare filled her face. “I stole from him.”
“I bet petty theft happens frequently, and especially to him. There’s more to it than that.”
Anger smoldered in her eyes. “I tried to steal from him, and when he caught me by my wrist, I stabbed him in the leg with my dagger. I didn’t know who he was. If I had ye better believe I wouldn’t have gone near him. He was dressed like a wealthy merchant prince of the city. How was I supposed to know what I was doing?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been stealing?”
She grunted and shook her head. “You know nothin’ of the city.”
“And the old man?” Sorin asked, looking at the sleeping, ragged lump on the floor. “What did he do?”
“I don’t know what he did. He’s been here so long I doubt he even remembers. Besides, he no longer has his tongue.”
The girl grabbed the bars that their cells shared and looked at Sorin with a maddening sincerity he found disconcerting. “Listen. When the Watchman first came to me here, he pulled me out of my cell and offered me my choice of blade. He told me if I could kill him, I would go free and save the other two here. He offered me the chance to kill him.”
“What happened?” Sorin asked.
“I took a short sword out and failed. I’m not ignorant with a blade, but he was smooth and fast and practiced. He had me on my back, disarmed, and bleeding before I knew what was happening. Since then he has hurt me, and he would have hurt me more if it weren’t for his preoccupation with the other two. I tell ye this now because there is a chance he will make ye the same offer.”
“I can’t kill him,” Sorin hissed through the bars.
“You have to. If you don’t, we are all dead.”
“Why would he give a person that chance?” Sorin asked.
“I don’t know. But look at this place,” she said. “It is obvious he gets sick pleasure out of torturing those who cross him. Perhaps it is one
more game to him. He strapped me against the bars of my cell and whipped and cut me until I nearly passed out from the pain. Then he stopped, only to return and begin again. He takes great joy from it and whispers his intentions before he fulfills them.” She shuddered. “Ye don’t want that. Do ye have any skill with a blade at all?”
Sorin shook his head. “I don’t. I’m a blacksmith, not a warrior.”
“So ye aren’t a priest then.” Her snide tone burned the air of the cell.
The headache thundering through his thoughts gave Sorin fuel to retort. “Look, I haven’t done anything to deserve being here,” he snapped. “You expect me to murder someone I don’t know and have never wronged? And after telling me the Watchman disarmed you as easily as he did, does it make a whole lot of sense for me to even try—to provoke him? Is that the only way out of here, to play his games?”
“Tis,” she said frankly.
“I won’t kill.” He paused letting his anger cool. “I guess I’m not like you.”
“Soon you will be,” she replied, her whisper growing sharper. “When he hurts you so bad you wish you were dead, you’ll give anything to have the chance to do it back.”
The sound of footsteps halted Sorin’s reply. The old man wheezed on in his dreams; the unconscious Ward hung with his chin on his chest. The girl moved away deeper into her cell as if the approaching sound was a form of torture. From the girl’s reaction, the Watchman came.
A figure materialized in the torchlight from the doorless entryway with smooth, confident strides. He was tall, wearing fine black clothes that accentuated his lithe body like a second skin. Long-fingered hands were folded in front of him in a relaxed fashion, as if he were a pious, humble priest looking in on his flock. He had faint, arched eyebrows beneath a crop of short white hair that bordered a thin nose, prominent cheekbones, and sharply-pointed jaw. A predatory glint sparked within his lavender eyes at the sight of his new occupant reminding Sorin of a hawk spotting a field mouse.
Although Sorin had seen a great deal on his travels, he was not prepared for the figure that stopped before his cell.
He was one of the Feyr.
Sorin had never seen one of the race, although he had heard tales while working at his father’s town smithy. They were a race that had defied the machinations of the Wrathful and, barely escaping with their society and culture intact, disappeared from the Kingdom almost entirely. In the tales, they held extraordinary grace and wisdom, and architects of the brightest civilization the world had ever known.
All of those legends shattered as soon as the Watchman entered, a Feyr who obviously possessed none of the attributes Sorin believed was characteristic of the Feyr race.
“Awake, I see,” the Watchman said, his voice silk. “You were dark for quite a while. I’m afraid some of the less hospitable in the city lack manners. I am sorry for their actions.”
Even though his jailor had apologized, only cold insincerity reached Sorin. He decided to say nothing, hoping to gain an insight into why he was there.
The Watchman caressed one of the steel bars. “Perhaps the blow to your head also knocked your tongue free?”
Sorin was still. “I’ve done nothing to you. Let me go.”
“It does speak, after all,” the Feyr chuckled, his long finger running down the lock on Sorin’s cage. “Why would I let my prize go free? We haven’t had time to become acquainted.”
“What do you want?”
“The direct approach. Good business is conducted in such a fashion,” the Watchman said as he folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll do you the courtesy as well. You are here because you travel with a man I despise. I had no idea he had returned to Aris Shae, but time and patience have a way of rewarding. Your value is undeniable to me. But I think the better question is, who are you?” he asked, a wry grin tugging at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. “How do you know the the family-slaying knight?”
Knight? From the things Sorin had seen Thomas do, it made sense he was—at least at one time—a ward devoted to the defense of the Kingdom. Had Thomas somehow gotten in the way of this Feyr’s ambitions at one point, the result being the death of Thomas’s family? Is that how he had succumbed to depression? An animosity of the kind burning behind the Watchman’s eyes could only sprout from true and warranted hatred.
“Are you his grandson, I wonder?” the Feyr questioned.
Sorin nodded, not knowing what to say. “We came here to visit with one of his friends.”
“You lie, boy,” the Watchman said, his words frosty. “The old man has no family left.”
If Sorin had been afraid before, he was terrified now. The Feyr did know Thomas well—or knew enough to act the part—and it meant Sorin was dangerously ensconced in the old man’s past recriminations. Sorin’s father had been fond of saying one’s past was never too far gone to come back to haunt you. Now Thomas’s past had also ensnared Sorin.
“He took me in when no one else would after the deaths of my parents. I am an orphan.”
The Watchman stared into Sorin, trying to uncover deceit. Finally, the Feyr chuckled. “How interesting. Trying to rebuild what he lost. How utterly sad.” The Watchman paused. “What friend is he seeing?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
The Feyr turned and with a single deft movement plucked from the wall a wicked-looking serrated knife with deep furrows. Producing a brass key from the black folds of his shirt, he opened Sorin’s cell door slowly and gestured to the weapon-laden wall. “I give every one of my guests a chance at freedom. It is a little game I like to play from time to time. I’m betting that if Thomas raised you, you might be a tad more interesting than most of those who slight me.”
“I won’t do it,” Sorin growled. “I have no skill.”
The Watchman stopped. “You don’t want a chance at escape?”
“I do. I won’t kill you to get it.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I will not damn my soul before the All Father. To murder is to lose one’s self.”
“So says who? Godwyn Keep?” the Feyr spat. “People murder every day, and the church is no exception. For you to believe otherwise shows your ignorance.”
Once, the injustice of his parents’ deaths would have steeled Sorin to commit murder to find the reasons they had been attacked. Now, the need for revenge was quelled.
“We Feyr see much in the human heart,” the pointed-eared figure said. “In yours I see a desire to revenge some wrong-doing.”
Sorin said nothing. To speak may betray what he had gained in the Sentinel Glade.
The Watchman waited, his skin pale orange in the flickering light of the torches. He then grinned. “I see coercion will be necessary. Irve, pull Lemmuel from his cell.”
A broad, bearded man appeared and lumbered to the cell beside Sorin’s. The Feyr’s accomplice opened the wheezing man’s cell door and dragged the ancient, mute prisoner from his confines. He dropped him in the middle of the room, a crumpled mess. As Irve backed away, Sorin saw how weak and disoriented the old man was. Bloodshot, weepy eyes opened to gaze at the Watchman and then Sorin. There, he saw absolute suffering, and it frightened him. It was a reminder to Sorin what the Watchman may yet do to him if he failed to act.
The Feyr offered him a simple short sword. Sorin grudgingly took it.
“If you don’t kill me, I will kill him,” the Feyr stated, pointing at his oldest prisoner with the glimmering point of his knife. A wide pink grin spread across his pale face. “His blood will be on your hands. Let’s see if Godwyn’s sensibilities let you grasp that damnation.”
Sorin said nothing. He looked down on the bearded man near his feet, his face riddled with scars. The girl’s gaze was upon him, wanting retribution for what had been done to her.
The sword slipped from his fingers. It clanked loudly against the stone floor.
The Watchman struck like a viper at the sound, a blur of motion so quick Sorin could barely follow it.
The serrated blade drove deep into the old man’s jowls, opening his throat. The old prisoner made no sound as his entire body slumped to the floor and went limp. His eyes lost focus, the life there darkened. Blood pooled around the man’s face slowly, as though even the red stain was as tired as the man had been in life.
The Feyr battered Sorin across the cheek with his free hand. Unexpected flame exploded in the young man’s head. He fell to the cold stone, the welling of blood in his mouth tasting of sweet iron.
Visions of the last few days fluttered at the edge of his consciousness until he settled on one more real than the others. As if it were happening again, Artiq stood over the fallen boy, victorious as it crushed its enemy beneath its hooves. Sorin reached out to the horse, disappearing inside his own consciousness before the Watchman threw another strike. Sorin’s blood pumped like the rumbling of hooves across a plain, and he smelled the faint scent of sweat and green grass, the freedom of the open plain exhilarating and refreshing compared to the stale city air. The image of Artiq danced before his eyes, and a part of him was bolstered by the horse’s strength in the vision. Sorin’s sight cleared, and he was again alone with the Watchman standing over him.
Song of the Fell Hammer Page 31