by Cheree Alsop
The kindest thing would be to put it out of its misery. I drew my sword and advanced again with caution. The yellow eyes held mine, unflinching and bright with pain. I brought the tip of my sword down, but it didn't move. I sighed and knelt back by the creature.
“Dathien would have my hide for being a fool,” I told the foth sternly in an attempt to hide my fear that it would spray me. “He was always worried about my safety, and here I am, taking risks again.”
I continued talking because the sound of my voice seemed to sooth it. I touched its fur and the foth closed its eyes as I felt its side gently and found claws marks gashing shallowly but painfully across the animal's ribs. I took out my water skin and poured water on the tattered fur. The foth hesitated, then stretched on its side as though it knew I was trying to help.
I cleaned the creature's wounds, then tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of my shirt and wrapped it around the foth's middle. I tied a knot and tucked the ends of the rough bandage underneath so they wouldn't snag on anything, but I doubted the foth would keep the cloth on for long anyway.
I stood, then looked from the nearly empty water skin to the poor animal at my feet. I knelt and poured some water in my hand while wondering if the creature's saliva was also acidic. It lapped at the water with its long green tongue, then licked my hand in what seemed like a thank you but was really probably just it looking for more water.
“Sorry, but I'm out,” I apologized. I laughed softly at my foolishness and rose. I glanced back once at the animal who continued to watch me with its unsettling yellow eyes, then I turned back onto the main road wondering if I had truly risked death to tend a foth's wounds.
Chapter 31
A soldier brought out an assortment of the King’s finest weapons for us to choose from. I hesitated at the sight of a spear, but the sword at my side felt familiar now and I was loath to trade it. Though it had seemed foreign and awkward at first, the curved blade fit well to my fighting style and I was reluctant to let something go that had saved my life on more than one occasion.
We were about to leave when a Duskie soldier knelt before Axon. “Prince of Lumini, I was ordered not to tell you what I am here to say, but because of your faith in our race, my heart is yours anyway. You can kill me or listen as you wish.”
Axon’s eyes creased with concern. “What were you ordered not to tell me?”
“Prisoners, good Prince.” The man looked up at Axon. “There are Lumini prisoners in the castle dungeon that were brought back on the two ships that survived the Sathen.”
Axon met my eyes, his jaw clenched. He turned back to the man and held out a hand to help him up. “Lead the way.”
The man's eyes widened in uncertainty, then he grabbed Axon's hand and rose from his knees. Axon paused before we entered the huge main doors to the Lysus castle and addressed the soldiers around us. “Nexa and I will go with-” he waited for the man to give his name.
“S-Serion, Sir Prince,” the man said.
Axon nodded. “We'll go with Serion, free our men, and meet you back here.”
The five soldiers who had been assigned by Commander Jashen to guard Axon looked at each other uncertainly. Axon gave a grim smile and set a hand casually on the hilt of his sword. “Trust me. I can take care of myself.”
A grin spread across the face of one of the older soldiers. I recognized him as one of the men who had fought beside Axon in Lumini. “Yes you can, Prince Axon.” He motioned for the other soldiers to follow him and they arranged themselves protectively around the castle door to await our return.
The guards opened the inside doors without a word. We followed Serion through the castle, past the great dining hall and the stairs that led down to King Raden's chambers, and to a locked door at the end of a lonely hallway. Two Luminos guards leaned wearily against the door; they straightened abruptly when we rounded the corner. Serion stopped nervously in the middle of the hall.
Axon and I stepped past him and Axon confronted the guards.
“Let us through.”
A guard with a badly-healed scar across his left cheek sneered, “We are under orders from King Raden to let no one pass.” He met Axon’s eyes with barely concealed hatred. “Even you.”
Axon stepped forward with a hand on his sword, but I touched his arm. “Axon, wait. There might be a better way to go about this.” I lowered my voice meaningfully. “Let’s go to our old rooms and regroup.”
Axon’s brow quirked slightly at the suggestion, but he nodded and backed away with a growl of frustration. “The King will hear about this,” he said.
The guard nodded. “I hope so.” The younger guard beside him looked from his scarred companion to Axon, but dropped his eyes without protesting.
Axon and I ran up to our rooms with Serion close behind. Axon blocked the doors with a couch and several chairs thrown on top for good measure.
“That ought to hold them,” he said with a satisfied nod.
“What are we doing here?” Serion asked. His eyes were wide as he stared around the fine chambers. He shifted from one foot to the other and I wondered if he felt the same way I had when I stood on the carpets in dirty bare feet, feeling even more bedraggled because of the beauty of the room.
Axon studied the man for a minute, his eyes searching. He then let out his breath slowly. “Serion, what we do here must not be spoken of to anyone. You've broken your King's orders to not tell us of the prisoners, and while I appreciate the information, it also increases my hesitance to trust you.”
Axon glanced at me and I saw a touch of humor in his eyes that vanished when he looked back at the Duskie. “I have two options. I can either kill you now so that you don't stab me in the back later.” He drew his sword and Serion eyed it warily, but he didn't back away or beg, something that lifted my opinion of him greatly. Axon frowned thoughtfully, “Or, I can take you with us to the dungeons, assume that being an accomplice to our actions will be enough to ensure your loyalty or at least your silence, and let you choose whether to go with us to Firen Caves or stay here and reap the consequences of your actions.”
Serion met Axon's eyes with humility. “Good Prince, I swear my fealty to you and am grateful accept the opportunity to go to the Caves. My father came from there and it’s my duty to see that any who can survive those stone walls is given a chance for a better life.”
Serion looked at me and bowed his head deferentially. “And to you, My Lady, I offer my protection and my servitude. Anything you need, please don't hesitate to ask.”
I nodded solemnly. “Thank you.”
Axon lifted his eyebrows at me and I turned to the door to hide my embarrassment. I walked through my room and opened the closet. A memory from our last visit followed me, laughter and joking from Axon’s men as they fought about who would go into the dark tunnel. I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat and pushed through the clothes to the empty space in the back. I worked the door free, then stepped in with Axon close behind. He slipped his hand into mine in a gesture that was so familiar the rush of warmth up my arm brought a smile to my face. Serion followed whispering shocked exclamations about the tunnel.
I led Axon down the dusty tunnel in the opposite direction we had gone before. After several small walkways, the floor took a steep dip and we followed it down until the air became cold and musty and the giant bricks around us were chilled and damp to the touch as though they hadn’t been warmed in a very long time. Axon followed my quiet directions perfectly and only bumped his head on a low beam when he got distracted with voices in a room near us. We waited for the voices to pass, then continued until the tunnel stopped entirely. Serion waited silently, his light green eyes wide and swirled face pale.
“Where are we?” Axon whispered when I stopped.
“Dead end,” I whispered back. “There must be an exit around here somewhere.”
“Are you sure?” he pressed. His voice was tight and I glanced up to see him feeling the wall despite the cobwebs. I saw then the dis
cipline and trust traveling for so long in the dark with only my voice to guide him must have required. He stared blindly in the darkness and I could hear his teeth grind together.
“I’ll find it,” I said to reassure him. He nodded and dropped his hands to wait. Only a slight quiver of his fingers betrayed how badly he wanted to leave the tunnel and darkness.
Serion and I searched the narrow passage. I found the door, given away by cobwebs waving slightly as though from a breath of air. I cleared them away with my hands and followed the edge of the door to the opening mechanism. Gears covered in decades of dust and filth led from a pulley system to several wheels. I pulled on one, but it wouldn’t budge. Serion tried the next one, but it barely moved; by the time the third started to creak under my weight, I was almost as anxious to get out of the tunnel as Axon. He heard the wheel move and put his hands by mine.
Together, we pulled down and the wheel turned the one next to it, which then turned the third. The gears shifted and a puff of dust rose into the air as the door slowly opened outward with the grating sound of stone on stone. When the opening was just wide enough for us to get through, I put a hand on Axon’s arm and we waited only long enough to ascertain no one was in the hallway before we stepped out. The three of us took deep breaths of air that was only somewhat less stale than the walkway.
Voices sounded down the hall followed by a hacking cough. A lifeless torch hung on the wall.
“Do you have flint and steel?” I asked.
Axon reached in his cloak pocket and handed them to me without speaking. Serion held the torch while I tried to light it. I dropped the steel once, but managed after several strokes to get a spark on the torch. Luckily, the material was dry and must have been treated because it flared up like a living thing. Axon took the torch from Serion with a look of relief on his face as though it was the sun itself. He slipped the flint and steel back into his cloak, then led the way down the cold hallway.
Muttering voices grew louder when we rounded a corner and came upon rows of barred cells. The spaces closest to us were empty, but a stench so powerful it made my eyes water floated from them. When I blinked, a memory of the cage on the ship swept through my mind with such force my blood ran cold. It took several breaths for me to collect myself enough to pretend nothing was wrong. I could make out the remains of a person in the third cell to our right and found myself staring at the dark shapes. Axon took my hand and hurried me past before I saw anything else.
Talking from the final dozen or so cells ceased as our torchlight bounced off the walls. Axon cleared his throat. “Is anyone down here from Lumini?”
Silence met his words, then, “Prince Axon?”
My heart leaped in my throat and I ran forward to grab the big hands that appeared through the bars. “Dathien!” I glanced at the rest of the cells. “Are the others here?” I asked excitedly.
“I'm the only one that made it,” Dathien said, his voice heavy. “As far as I know, the others were killed on the ship by the Sathen before they could escape.”
Axon knelt down next to the cage and touched the giant Luminos’ shoulder as though trying to convince himself that Dathien was real. “I can’t believe you’re here. I thought you were killed.” His voice was tight with emotion.
“How did you survive the attack?” I asked, my heart pounding.
“We were on deck when the creatures climbed up the sides. We fought them as long as we could and searched for Prince Axon, but he was no where to be found and we hoped he was on the rowboat.”
“He was rescuing me,” I put in, my voice unsteady.
A smile touched the big man’s lips. “Of course he was,” he said with a touch of his former humor. “I tried to get to you, too, but there were so many Sathen by the time I reached your side of the ship it looked like an ocean of teeth.” His voice caught, his eyes filled with pain. “I thought they had gotten you both. The Sathen swarmed over me like a man-eating wave, but I knew someone in Lumini needed to know what happened, and I fought back with the hope that there was someone left I could save.”
Then he sighed with a deep heaviness. “I couldn't find the others. I searched until the waves had taken half the ship down and I knew I had to get off before it went under. Since the rowboat was gone, all that was left were the barrels. I lashed two together and held onto them. I floated around in that vast watery wasteland with great toothy things circling about and my mind so baked by the sun and lack of water I had almost given up; then a ship appeared. It turned out to be a Lysus ship returning from battle against Lumini.” He gave a breath of satisfaction. “When I saw the state the Lysus were in, it gave me some peace.”
Axon touched the lock. “Who has the keys?”
“The guards,” Dathien replied. He waved toward the other end of the hallway. “Be careful. They’re a mite touchy.”
Axon rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it.”
He rose to his feet, but I couldn't bring myself to leave Dathien's side. The big man didn't seem in too bad of shape considering what he had gone through, but there was a haunted look in his eyes that didn't leave when he smiled. I reached through the bars and touched his arm. He cupped his hand over mine, dwarfing it. “It's good to see you, little minx,” he said, his voice warm despite the chill in the dungeon air.
I forced a smile to my lips. “I lost the only friends I'd ever had,” I said in an almost steady voice. “It's wonderful to have one of them back.”
He smiled wide enough to show his jutting front teeth. “There's one friend that will never leave your side, of that you can be certain.”
I looked down the hall where he indicated and my heart warmed at the sight of Axon speaking quietly to the four Luminos in the other cells. “You're right,” I agreed.
His face lit up, his eyes bright and free of their previous pain. “Then you've realized it.”
“What?” I asked, distracted by Axon motioning for me to follow him.
“That you were meant to be together.” Satisfaction rounded his voice. “I have a suspicion that Axon knew it from the beginning.” Dathien looked past me and his eyes narrowed slightly, a protective expression taking over his friendliness. “Who's that?”
I glanced back and saw Serion. I had completely forgotten he was there. I motioned for the Duskie to come forward and he did so hesitantly. “Serion, this is Dathien, one of Axon's closest friends and bodyguards. Dathien, we have Serion to thank for leading us here. He'll be going with us to the Caves.”
They shook hands as if they met in a marketplace or passing in the street instead of in a damp, decaying dungeon.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Serion said with full sincerity.
“The pleasure is mine,” Dathien answered with his customary smile.
I gripped Dathien's shoulder, then rose and followed Axon, my heart so full I had to glare at the floor for a few seconds to chase the tears away before Axon saw them.
Axon took my hand, his expression soft as if he guessed how I felt even if I didn't say it. His own eyes shone with a touch of their own damp brightness in the torchlight before he turned away. We left the torch at the end of the row of cells and crept down the long hall and up the flight of stairs to the door.
“Let me,” I whispered. I pushed the door open a few inches, then stepped back into the shadows of the landing.
A minute later, voices spoke close to the door. “Did you leave this open?”
“Not me; must have been Ros.”
The door was pulled shut; I pushed it open again and winked at Axon. He smiled, his eyes tight with caution.
The voices spoke again. “I thought you closed it!”
“I did,” the second voice argued.
Both fell silent for a moment, then the door flew open and the two armed guards we had met earlier rushed past us. I followed the one closest to me and hit him on the head with the hilt of my sword before he realized his mistake and turned around. Axon did the same to the guard with the scarred cheek. He didn't
go down quite as easily, and struggled to get back up as soon as he hit the ground. Axon wrapped an arm around his throat and shut off his airway until the guard fell unconscious. Breathing hard, Axon pulled a set of keys from the guard's belt. I shut the door so no one would hear, then stepped over the Luminos and followed Axon back to the men.
He quickly unlocked each cell, then Serion helped us pull the guards we had downed into the cell furthest from the door. “Hopefully this’ll buy us time if they regain consciousness before we’re gone,” he said, watching Axon lock them in.
Dathien glared at the guards. “And hopefully no one checks on them for a very long time. I doubt they’ll be missed.” He rubbed his shoulders meaningfully and I wondered if he now bore scars like mine. He caught my glance and winked as though guessing my thoughts.
I grinned. “It’s good to see you.”
He patted my shoulder. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was to hear your voices.”
“Your family-“ I stopped. I didn’t know how to tell him they were mourning.
He lifted his hand from my shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “Will be happy to see me when I return. I trust they’re alright?” He glanced at Axon for confirmation.
He nodded. “Lumini is safe and well protected by all its citizens.” He smiled at me. “It was close for a while, but our new Duskie attack force proved very timely.”
Dathien's shaggy eyebrows lifted and an exclamation escaped one of the other men we had freed before he could stop himself.
A guard moaned.
“We’d better get out of here,” a soldier with gray hair and faded blue eyes said. He ducked his head and started to cough. Dathien touched his arm, but the soldier shook his head, stubborn lines around his weary eyes and mouth. “I’ll be fine if we can get out of this damp dungeon.”
Axon led the way to the hidden door, then glanced at his torch, reluctant to leave it.