Death Flag

  “If you were trying to hide something in the middle of a thousand people, you wouldn’t put it out in broad daylight, right?” he offered by way of explanation. “This way.” He pulled them deeper between the tents, and he almost immediately spotted what he was looking for. There was a large tent, about twice the size of any of the others he had seen, set right in the middle of several others, and there were two men posted out front. Each was carrying a sword and a shield, and they weren’t bothering to hide the fact that they were guarding whatever was inside.

  “What do you think?” Madison asked, nodding toward them. “Look suspicious enough for you?”

  “Everyone in here is suspicious,” Shayna answered dryly. “But I guess they’re as good as any others we’ve come across.”

  “Can you slip around and take care of the one on the far side? Quietly?”

  She looked up knowingly at him for a moment and then detached herself and disappear into the darkness without a sound.

  “Stay here,” he whispered to Erin. “Stay low, and don’t let anyone sneak up on you. This will only take a moment.”

  He counted to ten, giving Shayna enough time to get into position, and then stumbled out from in between the tents, once again acting the part of the drunk. Swaying from side to side, he headed directly for the two guards. Their hands immediately went to their swords, but they hesitated when they saw him stagger back and forth. The two exchanged a glance, and the one closest to him stepped forward away from the tent. He was only a few feet away when the second guard collapsed with a soft thud. The man was upright and steady one moment and then down on the ground, clutching his throat the next. The man directly in front of him turned to see what was wrong with his companion, and the moment he took his eyes off of Madison, he already was a dead man. Madison swiftly reached down and pulled out his boot knife, ready for what came next.

  The man had only just begun to draw his sword and turn back around when Madison attacked. He reached out with his left hand and simultaneously grabbed the man’s wrist, stopping him from drawing his blade, and stabbed forward with his knife. The tip of his blade silently pierced into the man’s soft flesh and then withdrew, leaving behind a deadly wound. Madison quickly stepped forward and grabbed the man’s body and eased him to the ground so that he wouldn’t make any more nose as he collapsed before pressing his hands down over the man’s mouth and waiting for him to die. It wasn’t a precaution that he normally would have taken, but he wasn’t willing to risk making any more noise than absolutely necessary. If he was going to guard a high-value prisoner such as Lord Fox, he would have set up guards inside the tent as well as out, and even the noise created by the first man collapsing should have set anyone who heard it on high alert.

  He turned and waved Erin forward once he was confident that the man wasn’t going to make any more noise or thrash about, and she appeared beside him a moment later, making him suspect that she was already much closer than he had realized. He looked around, searching for Shayna, and found her already cautiously peeking inside the tent. He felt his heart rate spike at her brazen curiosity, and images of her being caught out by an awaiting guard flashed through his mind’s eye.

  Fortunately, no one struck out at her. She waved them forward with one hand and then disappeared inside. He wanted to curse her, and he wanted to fault her for going ahead alone, but a part of him also knew that was her job. She was better at this than he was—this was actually what she had been trained for—and he had to remember that she could see far better in the dark than he ever could due to her talents. If there was anyone who should go first when Warren wasn’t there, it was her.

  Pushing down the fear he felt over her safety, he crept forward with Erin and silently slipped inside as well. There was only very little light to see by outside, and it was basically pitch black now that the little bit of light had been taken away completely, so he paused once they were both inside and the tent flap fell closed and waited for his eyes adjust to the darkness. A bright light flared up a moment later, momentarily blinding him before it dimmed down, and he realized that Shayna had lit one of the smokeless torches that they had been given when they left K’yer Utane. He hadn’t realized that he could control the brightness like that, and he made a mental note to ask her about it later on if they made it out of this alive. As strange as it was to think about after everything that had happened, there were still so many things that he didn’t understand and that no one had explained to him. Something as simple as controlling the amount of light a torch gave off shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did.

  Madison glanced around the tent, taking everything in. The tent had been cleverly disguised as some sort of storage depot. There were tightly-packed weapons racks and a few random pieces of armor strewn about as well as an uncountable number of unopened boxes and crates that could contain absolutely anything. There in the back, however, with several of the larger boxes pushed in front of it, was the unmistakable top of a large cage. It looked as if someone had clumsily tried to hide it, and they hadn’t done a very good job of it at all. Even from where they stood in the entranceway, it was clearly visible as long as someone happened to be looking at it.

  Madison exchanged a knowing look with Shayna and then slowly crept toward it. He deftly maneuvered the large boxes out of the way, taking the utmost care not to make any noise, and then came to a stop directly in from of the cage. It was no more than a few feet tall and only a few feet wide, but there between the bars, he could clearly see the shape of a man curled up into a ball. Madison examined the person for a moment, and he felt a fleeting sense of panic wash over him. He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do if this actually was Lord Fox, and he was dead or gravely injured. Truth be told, he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do if it wasn’t Lord Fox at all. It had taken a great deal of luck that they even managed to make it this far or find this place, and he didn’t think it was likely that they’d be able to repeat the process again in the same night. That meant that all of the risks they had taken, as well as the distraction that Warren was still working on, would go to waste if Fox wasn’t ambulatory.

  Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Madison crouched down and rapped on one of the steel bars with the back of his knuckles. The dull, metallic sound rang out through the otherwise quiet tent, and Madison inwardly flinched at the unexpectedly-loud sound. The body in front of him didn’t even so much as move, so Madison reached up and rapped the cage again. This time, the person there sprang to life. A bony hand shot out between the bars and clasped around Madison’s wrist before he could pull his arm away. The man’s head came up slowly, and Madison stared into Lord Fox’s eyes. His face was pale and gaunt as if he hadn’t eaten in days, and his sunken eyes had a dull, glassy look to them as if he hadn’t slept either.

  There was a gasp from behind him as Erin saw the same thing Madison had. The man had only been missing for a few days’ time, but he was clearly in worse shape than Madison expected. The bandit he had interrogated had led him to believe that the slavers were going to hold Fox for ransom, but mistreating a prisoner of war whom you planned on ransoming back to his people off wasn’t something that was either common or a good idea. No one wanted to buy back a half-dead and addle-brained monarch who’d never be able to lead his country again. It was a bad investment, and no one in his right mind would ever sign off on it, no matter how beloved the captive lord was.

  “Take this,” Shayna said hastily, pressing the torch into Erin’s hands. She pulled something from her belt and dropped to her knees as she went to work on the cage’s lock. He had said she looked like more of an assassin than a thief before, but that description clearly didn’t extend to her abilities if she was able to pick that lock like a well-trained burglar.

  Lord Fox studied Madison for a moment as if trying to figure out who he was and then his lip curled back and he started cackling in a low tone. “This is really it,” he muttered to himself. “I am surely seeing things now. O
f all of those who could have carried me on, this is who has come. You haunt me, even in death.” The last part was addressed directly to Madison, and he had no clue what any of it meant. Regardless, he didn’t have the time or patience to deal with it. Now that they had found their first prize, he was suddenly anxious to find the second.

  “Spare me,” Madison said coldly, pressing his face closer to the bars. “If I wanted you dead, I would have done it myself long ago.”

  A slight look of confusion passed over Fox’s face, as if that was the last thing he had ever expected to hear, and he couldn’t understand what the words meant.

  “Where’s Alyanna?” Madison pressed without giving Fox the time he needed to parse it out. When Fox didn’t answer immediately, Madison repeated his question, only much more slowly and with emphasis on every word. “Where is your daughter, Lord Fox?”

  The man’s face scrunched up into a ball as if he were struggling to comprehend what Madison was asking, but he didn’t say another word.

  Madison reached through the bars and slap the man across the face as hard as he could with his free hand. There was a loud pop as his hand struck Fox’s shrunken face, and some of the life started to return to his eyes. “That’s right,” Madison said. “Pain still hurts. That’s good.” He repeated the slap even harder, and Lord Fox’s lip curled back into a snarl. Madison grinned wickedly. “Do you need another? Or have you figured out that I’m real now?”

  “By the gods,” the man swore. He released his grasp on Madison’s wrist and reached up to rub his cheek where Madison had popped him.

  “Where is your daughter?” Madison repeated.

  “My daughter . . . Alyanna . . .” Light started coming back into Fox’s eyes as he repeated those words. “My son . . . Darrius!” He choked on a sob as it died in his throat, and Madison was afraid that he was going to fall into a coughing fit for a moment before Lord Fox recovered himself.

  “Got it!” Shayna declared from below. There was an audible click as the lock snapped open, and he and she both quickly jumped out of the way, allowing the cage to swing open.

  Erin pushed forward then before either of them could do anything, and she began using the dim light provided by the lit rod to examine Fox. Now that he was illuminated a little better, it was clear exactly how awful his condition was. He had bruising and swelling all over his face, and Madison could only guess what the rest of his body looked like. When she peeled back the filthy rag that was his shirt, there were dark-colored bruises showing on his ribs as well, indicating that some of them were broken. Erin began carefully poking and prodding Fox almost immediately, and her face grew grimmer by the minute as she conducted her examination.

  Lord Fox sat back against the bars of the cage and tried to stretch his legs as Erin did her job, something he likely hadn’t done in days. His muscles tensed up almost immediately, making the job impossible, and the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere quickly became extremely evident.

  “He’s never going to be able to walk like this,” Shayna said, stating the obvious.

  “No,” Madison responded grimly. “And that’s a big problem.”

  “I assume you have a plan for this,” Shayna stated plainly. “Please, tell me you anticipated this.”

  Madison gave it his best effort to keep his face from showing exactly how worried he was, but he couldn’t stop himself from wincing slightly. “What do we need, Erin?” he asked instead.

  She finally peeled her eyes away from Fox and held out her hand expectantly as she looked at him. He knew what she wanted, and he shook his head as he handed her the fresh bottle of healing drought he had a moment later. That was the last bottle he had with him, and using it on Fox meant that he wouldn’t be using it on anyone else. If one of them was fatally injured, or if Alyanna was in an equally-awful condition as her father, it would mean that he couldn’t save them.

  Erin wasn’t apparently worried about the details the same way he was, however, and she immediately pressed the bottle to the man’s lips. Fox took in a large sip of the dark-red liquid and then another and then another. There were little changes evident at first, but slowly, color started returning to his cheeks. The clouds seemed to flee from his eyes, and a bit of clarity and sanity returned there as well. He sucked in a deep breath, and Erin passed the bottle back to Madison before going back to work inspecting his injuries.

  Madison clenched his teeth together, once again falling into a crouch. “Where is Alyanna?” Madison asked grimly. He hated repeating himself, but under the circumstances, he knew it couldn’t be helped. “Do you know where she is? We think that she’s still somewhere in the camp, but we can’t be certain.”

  “No,” Fox gasped, shaking his head slightly. “I have not seen her in . . . Oh, it feels like forever.”

  “But you did see her?” Madison pressed. “You saw her here? In this camp?”

  There was a moment of silence and then Fox nodded his head, albeit with seeming reluctance. “Yes,” he answered hoarsely. “They brought her here and showed me to her at one point. I think they were using me to try and break her. She has a strong spirit, my daughter, and she would not be swayed by a sight such as me. She said . . .” Fox trailed off for a moment and his eyes dulled again as he recalled the memory, though it was from the tears that rose into his eyes this time and not because of a stupor. “She said she had no use for a father who sold her off and used her as he saw fit like a common cow. She said . . . She said that she was no slave to be bartered and used as I had . . .” He leveled his gaze on Madison, and Madison could tell exactly what effect it was having on him. He was only a shadow of his former self, and he hadn’t so much as made one reference to ‘the way’ yet.

  “She knows what you did,” Madison said quietly and firmly. “She knows how you planned to use her. She knows that you abandoned her for dead the moment it suited your tastes—the moment you realized you would be better off serving your country rather than your own family.”

  Fox didn’t make any attempt to deny the allegation. Instead, he simply said, “I did what was necessary. I chose what was best. I have now lost two children to this war, and that fact cannot be changed. What I did was inexcusable, I know, but that does not mean that I love her any less. To hear her say those things . . . No father should have to hear such things.”

  “I’m not going to tell you that what you did was right or offer sympathy,” Madison said coolly. “What I need to know is where she is being held. We know that she was being kept here in this camp before being transferred to the goddess. Where is she?”

  Fox’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he seemed to swell up. “You are the devil! Telling you my daughter’s location would only be handing her from one demon to the next. If she is to be freed, it will not be by the likes of you. If the goddess wishes to see her personally, then perhaps it is for the best. At least she will remain safe until she reaches that destination.”

  Madison couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Fox was torn up by the fact that his daughter cast him aside and blamed him for treating her like chattel, yet he wasn’t even willing to give Madison the chance to save her. It didn’t make any sense. Everything he knew about the situation, everything he had learned from Burke and all the others, said that Fox had traded her off as a means of casting aside a useless heir and securing the help of K’yer Utane. How someone could throw away their daughter was a mystery to Madison, and it was even more confusing how he could still claim some strange sense of entitlement to protecting her after doing so.

  Madison clenched his teeth again and chewed on them for a moment as he thought about what Fox had said. The man clearly wasn’t going to answer to reason, not by any rational means, anyway. If he was a reasonable person, he never would have gotten himself into this horrid situation to begin with. After all, no rational father traded away his daughter’s life. Finally, after sever tense moments of the two staring each other down, he reached an idea.

  Madison refused to drop his gaze, a
nd he spoke every word slowly and clearly so that there would be no misunderstanding between them when he was finished. “Your daughter’s life is mine, Fox. I claimed her life as my own the moment I spared her. Whether you appreciate that fact—whether or not you even like that fact—doesn’t change it from being true. Now, tell me: What does that mean to you? What does that mean to your ‘way?’”

  Fox was clearly shocked by Madison openly referencing his religion—or his way of life, whatever it was—and he looked like he was bouncing between confusion and outrage. He might not have been able to do so much as recognize who Madison was mere minutes ago, but his brain was now working overtime as he tried to figure out how he was going to worm his way out of Madison’s trap.

  “Frankly, I don’t really care what it means to you,” Madison supplied before Fox decided on an answer.

  The confusion gave way to outrage on Fox’s face, and Madison had to quickly interject once again. “Don’t you dare tell me what I should or should not blaspheme,” Madison growled in a low, threatening tone. “You don’t have that right. Her life is mine, and you’re currently standing between us at the moment. I don’t care whether you believe I’m the devil or not. I don’t care whether you care for her or not, and I don’t care whether or not you recognize her as your daughter or as your heir. I’m am fairly certain, however, of the fact that you understand that you’re going to tell me where she is. Otherwise, you will suffer the repercussions.”