When he awoke he realized he was still in the Pit and smelled like piss. No one had removed him or taken him back to the cell. No one had come for him at all. That was when the realization hit him. No one would ever come for him. All of his allies were dead and his own father had doomed them all. At least Zakk and Ebriz and Boram were all free of this world. He was still there, to feel the pain and anguish of betrayal in the land of his enemies.
Land of enemies… how ridiculous. How could he call this place a land of enemies when his own country would just as soon see him dead? Little more than a week ago, Raegith was on his way to another prison, being tortured along the way. He had thought himself rescued. He had thought himself free, all the way through the deserts and dead fields of the Greimere Empire. Had the Declaration not had those few sentences at the very end, the Empress might have treated him to a night within the palace and then sent them on their way with a completed mission. A few written words later, his two best friends in the world were both dead and the Empress was addressing him as if the entire fate of their empire were directly his fault.
It had been three weeks since that first day in the Pit, but he was no longer beaten on by Torga. That did not stop the others from constantly harassing and torturing him. In case he did not figure it out on his own, it was made clear by a single individual.
The bell for evening meal rang and Raegith went to get his food. When he returned he found an older Rathgar and three younger, more intimidating warriors with him. He was well dressed for an inmate and looked as if he lived more comfortably in the Pit than others did. He was sitting on Raegith’s bed and did not even rise when the prince entered.
“You cost me today, Grass-hair,” the old Rathgar said, rubbing the back of his head nonchalantly. “You were supposed to take your life in shame after Torga beat you, but like all Northerners, you continue to insult us. I’m not even sure what sick, twisted plan the acestors had to send you here instead of killing you. Maybe they meant for me to beat a thousand years of suffering into you, I don’t know.”
The Rathgar finally got up from the bed and approached Raegith.
“You’d better believe it’s coming for you, Grass-hair.”
The old man took the bowl of gruel from Raegith as his henchmen stared holes through him, daring him to react. Deliberately, the man tilted the bowl up over Raegith’s head and emptied his evening meal in his hair. He shook the remainder of the gruel out and clapped the empty bowl onto Raegith’s head and stared at him. Raegith clenched his teeth and took it, knowing full well that the four of them would tear him apart if he tried to fight.
“It’s coming for you. You will be made an example of. Pleasant dreams.”
Hugar made good on his promise, coming to him every other night with his men and beating him sensless. The old Rathgar knew enough to stop before Raegith died. He was skilled enough in torture to avoid any permanent damage; always making it to where the boy would recuperate just in time for the next punishment. Oddly, a few times he had woken up in his bed with cleaned wounds. He doubted Hugar was doing it, but could not rule out the possibility that the old Rathgar was sending some woman in to keep him healthy enough for torment.
Despairing and without any companionship, Raegith took his beatings without fighting back, hoping each time that Hugar would lose interest and finally put him down for good. He stopped eating, hoping the lack of energy would expedite his demise and in the times between visits, he thought of Zakk and Ebriz and Onyx.
“Soon, we will all be together,” Raegith whispered as he lay there and hoped his stomach would finally just collapse and take the rest of him with it.
“Raegith?”
Raegith looked up at the first voice he had recognized in almost a month. Standing in the entryway of his cell, encased in the dull light of morning, was his only love. Her light blue skin glimmered and the blackness of her eyes caressed him. He had longed for her for so long in that place, wishing he was back in her arms. So many times he had let his mind drift back to that night he spent with Onyx, whispering to her in the dark of the tent after making love. Now here she was, beckoning him to the afterlife, to be with her once more.
It had taken weeks for word of the Northerners to reach Helkree, but only a few minutes for her to act on the information. It did not take much to get into the kind of trouble that they would imprison her for. She ran the risk of the Empress finding out, but the Citadel was too large and there were too many going in and out of the Pit for the ruler to be made aware of every detainee.
When she got through all of the security and found the boy, he was already in a horrid state. When she called to him, he barely responded.
“Raegith,” she repeated, worried that the inmates had done something to cripple him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Raegith flinched and began calling her a weird name. He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. He was not crippled, so she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently.
“Get up! Get up right the fuck now!”
Raegith snapped out of his stupor and looked up into her eyes. She nearly slapped him.
“Is this some kind of Northerner bullshit you’re pulling right now? Do you need sunlight or flowers or your mother’s tit or some shit or else you get like this?”
“Who? Helkree?” Raegith moaned, staring at the woman before him. “What the hell are you doing in the afterlife?”
“Holy Hellspawn, is that where you think you are?” she asked. “If this is your idea of the afterlife up north, then you fools need to find a new religion. You’re not dead, Raegith, but you will be if you don’t get out of this cell. Now come on!”
Raegith let Helkree ease him up to a sitting position. He took a few drinks of water from his pail and looked her over. His cheeks were sunken and he looked sickly.
“I’m too far gone, Helkree. Just let me die here.”
“I’m not waiting that long, you idiot,” Helkree said, smirking at the confused look on his face. “It will take weeks for you to starve yourself to death.”
“I was hoping to go out on my own terms instead of being beaten to death by Hugar. I can’t even control my own death in here!”
Helkree replied dryly. “Lack of food and torment from an inmate won’t kill you as quickly as what you’re doing right now.”
“And what is that?” Raegith asked.
“Giving up,” Helkree stated. “I can see it well enough, we have enough of it in the Greimere than anyone here can. It’s why no one has killed you, yet; you’re not worth the effort. No one here feels any pity or remorse for you, Raegith. They won’t kill you because they all suspect that’s what you want and in here, you don’t get what you want unless you take it.”
“All of my friends are dead. My father… the king, betrayed me. He sent me here to die, away from anyone who might raise a fuss, to be forgotten. Hell, he’s probably already executed my mother in Rellizbix and erased my entire existence. I have nothing.”
“You’re still alive. You’ve still got that mane of grass-colored hair that pisses everyone around here off. You’ve still got that monster hiding in your pants unless it’s become as shriveled up as you are.” Helkree stood up before him. “And you’ve still got me.”
“What are you doing here, Helkree?”
“I can’t stay out of trouble. I may have gotten caught skipping out on an enormous bar tab a little bit easier than I should have, but I’m just as much of a criminal as anyone else here… more so probably.”
“You got yourself arrested and imprisoned to keep me company?” Raegith asked. “Are you going to share the cell with me, too?”
Helkree laughed at him. “You’ve been beaten, starved and your companions are all dead, yet you’re still trying to get a piece of ass. Too bad you don’t have that determination when it comes to defending yourself against these assholes in here.”
“I’m a prisoner here, Helkree. I’m locked away to be forgotten by all. What’s the point in anythi
ng I do here?”
“You’re in a bad place right now, I can see that,” Helkree answered. “I tell you what; I would have ended up in here one way or another, so it’s no big deal that I got myself thrown in prison to come find you. So since I still kind of owe you one, I’ll do you a favor and snap your neck right now. It’ll probably get me beaten to death by the ass-lickers that have it in for you, but you’ll be dead and won’t have to worry about that.”
Helkree was in his face now, staring hard into his eyes with fire in hers.
“I don’t want to die, Helkree… but they aren’t going to let me have any peace in here, no matter what I do.”
“I heard Hugar claimed you,” Helkree said.
He did not even look up at her. “He said I have it coming; a thousand years of pain that my kind have inflicted on yours.”
Helkree paused, looking at him undecidedly. Then she sat down beside him and leaned back, laying down behind him. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back into her.
“Lay with me, Raegith,” she said, pulling him close to place his head I the crook of her shoulder. “The old man was right; they will come for you and they won’t stop for years. I’ll do what I can for you, but you have to harden yourself, Raegith; harden yourself against this whole place… like I did.”
He did not respond to her, but he did not pull away either. After some time, she felt him start to doze in her arms. She looked down at hisbattered, innocent-looking face; his long, green hair and his pointed ears. He looked so foreign; so much like the dainty races of the north that somehow managed to defeat the Greimere army time after time, despite their decadence. She had always hated the north and had thought she hated the people there, even though she had never seen one. Then Raegith was there, just as she went through the worst moment of her life. When she was alone and helpless and wishing for death, he appeared and barely hesitated to free her. He was nothing like what she imagined a Northerner to be.
She used to take pride in being a wanderer without purpose; she thought that it made her freer than the others. She was always lonely, though. With her attitude and refusal to abandon the warrior life, she had no friends. There were only business partners and sex partners; no one willing to share a beer over common interests and certainly no one willing adore anything deeper than her flesh. Maybe that’s what always got her into trouble; what always saw her in the bed of a psychopath, drenched in his blood and bawling her eyes out. She always found the worst ones when she was vulnerable, but she would not submit to their twisted demands. She would kill them before submission.
Then there was Raegith, who clothed her, spoke with her and relied upon her. She did not know how to handle it, so she did what she had always done with any male who treated her with something other than disdain: she fucked him. She could have screwed it all up, the way she went about it. He was young and inexperienced and practically unconscious and when he came to he was furious with her; but then it was fine. She was not discarded or abandoned. She was not forced to kill him in self-defense. He kept her against the protests of his companions from his own home. He was compassionate, but compassion was a weakness in the Greimere. He needed a warrior to protect him and she was chosen for him by Fate or the Ancients or whoever was out there pulling the strings.
She had gone two decades knowing in her soul that she was a warrior, though she had no reason to be. It did not make sense in her world for her to feel that way, but the knowledge was undeniable to her. There was a reason she was so strong and resilient and violent; a reason why she was so hard when her world only had use for women who were soft. That reason was in her arms. She was not meant to be a maiden or a mistress and certainly not a wife. She was there, in that world to keep him safe from any enemy and she would never leave him.
She let him sleep beside her for a while and then slid out from behind him and made her exit. Before she left his cell, she took another long look at him as he slept.
I can’t cook, or keep anything clean and I would just as soon throw small children to a Night Beast then raise one. I would make a horrible mate, she thought. But there is something I am good at… better than anyone else in here.
She turned and walked down the corridor. It was dark out and the only light was from the glowing emberstones socketed along the walls, casting the entire Pit in a rusty orange. Below and above, women went about their chores. Helkree managed to catch a glimpse of an unfortunate Lokai girl, barely a woman, get yanked off her feet and into a cell by thick, green hands. Her scream was cut short by an impact.
Helkree did not stop. That was the way things were in the Greimere, but it was twice as bad in the main prison of the Empire. If the girl were stronger or had a scarier master, she wouldn’t be swimming in darkness while her limp body was violated. Helkree had other matters to attend to.
She was acquainted with Hugar. They had done business together before, when they were both free and he even helped hide her from bounty hunters once. It wasn’t without a price, though. She hoped that she could appeal to his tastes once more.
As she came upon the cell she guessed was his, she grabbed the collar of her shirt and ripped it halfway down the center. Then she took a breath, steadying herself for what she knew she had to do, for Raegith’s sake. Whatever it takes to keep him safe.
“Helkree of Edge. How did you manage to wind up in here?” Hugar laughed, waving her past his body guards.
“Everyone gets caught, eventually. Even Hugar, it seems.”
Hugar looked her over, pausing at her chest. “You made the right choice coming to me so soon, Helkree. You may be a hellion outside the walls, but in here, without protection… you’re just a bitch.”
Helkree could see the eagerness in his eyes and in his fingers as she strolled up to him. He was almost reaching out for her when she got to his side of the stone desk he sat behind. She ran her fingers through his grey hair and pushed her bosom up close to his face and he reached around to grip her ass.
“You’ve pledged to destroy that foreign kid from the north?” she asked.
“I’m going to tear his ass apart… once I get done with yours.”
“No… you’re not,” she whispered.
Sliding back a step, Helkree tightened her grip on his mane of hair and slammed his face into the corner of the desk. Hugar’s body twitched in response, but she kept at it, breaking the edge off of the stone with the third impact.
Blood and teeth and brains covered the tabletop and one of his blue eyes rocked back and forth on the floor. Helkree shoved the corpse of her former partner off of the chair and snapped one of the legs off as the three guards rushed into the cell at her.
With bared teeth and the jagged chair leg in her hand, she turned to meet the three, burly, vengeful Rathgar.
“I don’t know why, Raegith,” Helkree said, annoyed with his questions. “It’s always been that way. I pick my battles and most of the time I’m simply defending myself, but I cannot help what I am. I know I’m a warrior and I always have been. I’m unsuited for any other purpose.”
Raegith dabbed the cloth into the bowl of water and continued to clean her wounds. Helkree hated being confined to the stone bed in Raegith’s cell, but she could not get around on her own, yet and he was the only one who would guard her and take care of her while she healed.
“My friend, the red-haired girl, was the same way. She dressed up like a man for years in order to train as a soldier.”
“Well that’s twisted!” Helkree spat. “I’m a woman. I don’t want to be a man and I certainly am not about to dress up like one in order to be a warrior. That’s just weird.”
“What is weird is that they didn’t kill you,” Raegith said. “Is murder not a capital offense here? You can kill four men and all you get is a week in the dungeon and a public caning?”
“Hey, fuck you. That shit hurt, alright. And being a female in a dungeon ran by dipshit Rathgar is no picnic. A lesser creature would have been broken by it. For me, it
’s slightly inconvenient.”
“I’ve been whipped before. I was tortured by my own people. They did worse to Zakk. I guess there isn’t much difference between those with power in the north and those with power in the south.”
“Probably not.”
“I appreciate what you did for me, Helkree,” Raegith said. He set his jaw and stopped washing her. “But you won’t do it again.”
Helkree propped herself up on her elbows, wincing at the pain in her ribs. “The fuck I won’t! I dare someone else to come dump chowder on you…”
“You won’t do this again because you won’t have to,” Raegith interrupted. “If power lets men do what they wish in here, then I’ll get power. I’ll be more powerful than anyone else in here and bend them all to my will. Then… we’re all going to be fucking peaceful under threat of death.”
“You’re going to need to be much stronger than you are right now… and quickly.”
Chapter 19
Inside the Pit, the usual methods of gaining power and possession were off limits to Raegith and Helkree. They had no outside connections, they were hated by the guards and none of the other inmates would trade with them, even if they had anything to trade. The only outlet open to Raegith, the only thing no one could refuse him, was the Gulag.
The Gulag was an event held each month at the Pit. Raegith had left his cell long enough to witness a few minutes of one during his second week there. Citizens filled seats high above the cells and watched as the large Rathgar and the wiry Lokai and even the few bestial Urufen would beat each other senseless. Wagers were made between inmates and even among the guards. It was a sordid affair, but it brought money into the Pit and the guards passed some of this fortune onto those who fought. The best fighters were gifted with everything from meat, bread, booze… even female slaves. Winning fights in the Gulag was the quickest and the most glorious way to ascend the ranks of inmates. Gulag Champions were the most revered inmates in the Pit.
Beyond the Hell Cliffs Page 20