The Chronicles of Outsider: Humble Beginnings
Page 56
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Outsider rushed down the hall as fast as he could go quietly in his soft soled boots, ignoring the voices that murmured both in sleep or confusion, and to the last cell. He threw himself against it and gripped the bars tightly to peer through. Straining to see the figure within the blankets he craned his neck to the side when the prisoner rolled over.
“He’s not in there.” Outsider whispered and his eyes widened in fear. He was running out of time but still had at least another score of cells to check. A voice in the back of his head urged him to run and flee this place; his honed instincts always leading him; but this time was different. He refused to leave Thom and made his way back across the hall to the door connecting the other side.
A flare of light grew at the end of the hall then. Outsider barreled back into the cell he had cut into and laid beneath the cot. Voices echoed from the same direction as the glow and a moment later, half a dozen guards rounded the corner, each carrying a torch. Outsider remained completely motionless as they made their way to each cell and looked in on them.
“So why are we doin’ this again?” a reedy voice asked and a thin man turned to the others. A few shrugged and paid him little heed while the others looking to the largest of the group.
“Because Blaine said so,” the big man droned in a deep bass. “He said he would be here tonight to try and get the hobbit out.”
“Okay, but why are we here? If that guy can do half the stuff I heard he can then we—“
“Because Blaine said so!” the somber man reiterated. He glowered at the thin man and shoved his way past him. “If yer too scared to fight, I’m sure he’ll understand. Just go tell ‘em yourself, one on one.” If the dripping sarcasm wasn’t enough, the thought of being in the same room as the bounty hunter alone was. The thin man swallowed loudly and began checking cells.
“So where is the hobbit?” another asked.
The big man turned to regard him and looked about ready to strike. “None of yer damn business. Shut up and do your job ‘fore I crack open yer skull and feed ya’ to the prisoners.”
Outsider marked the big man in his mind and took a deep breath. Stealthily he crawled from under the cot and strafed to the nearest man. He could smell the alcohol on him. Then with two sure movements, gripped the man around the mouth with one hand and slipped a knife through his spinal cord with the other. The feel of the vertebrae giving was all he needed.
He flipped the man out of the way and rushed the next before the first hit the ground, slashing his throat out. At the sound of their fall, the others turned about and found only darkness. In fact, they couldn’t see anything; not even their torches.
Outsider leapt into the cloud of Inksmoke he had dropped and listened intently to their cries of alarm and frustration. He honed in on their location by such with both knives drawn and dispatched the lot of them before the dark dissipated. The big man lay on his side, breathing heavily, and gripped the side of his stomach to staunch the bleeding.
“Where is Thom?” Outsider demanded through grit teeth. He gripped the man’s collar and shook him. “Which cell?”
The man tried to laugh but instead squeezed his eyes shut in pain. “Cell don’t matter.”
Outsider studied the man’s face. “What’re you talking about?”
The man smiled as blood pooled in his mouth and beneath him. He met Outsider’s eyes for just a moment, shaking and fading fast, and spat blood between them. The big man exhaled deeply and seemed to shrink in size as his head lolled to the side limply.
Outsider dropped him and took off at once for the other door.
***
The sound of a gate closing reverberated quietly near his cell. Thom froze as panic began to well up inside of him. He couldn’t breathe! All the air in his lungs seemed to have frozen and grown to an immense weight until he could hardly move. He fell heavily onto his cot and laid there utterly defeated.
“I told you I’d come for you first.” a voice whispered from the hall. Thom turned his head and nearly leapt from his skin as he beheld a familiar cloaked figure.