Death Flag

  Someone struck light to a torch on what was likely the far end of the enclosed area, and then flame after flame sprang to life around the edges. Madison watched expectantly as the area was lit up, revealing what was little more than a barren dirt arena and exposing what he already knew: they had just walked into a trap.

  CHAPTER 24

  The lights flared up around the area one by one, illuminating the small space and casting an eerie glow on the entire scene. The center of the fenced-in yard was little more than barren, hard-packed dirt that had been trodden across countless times, and there were dozens of people lined up along the sides. The fires had been lit in what appeared to be large braziers and metal barrels, and Madison was honestly surprised to see them here since almost everything he had come across within the encampment so far seemed to have been hastily pieced together from whatever was at hand, and these screamed of a type of luxury that was entirely out of place.

  A single torch was carried out into the center of the large dirt patch, and the person there slowly walked around, lighting a series of torches.

  “They’re being rather dramatic about it,” Madison muttered, once more wringing his knuckles around his sword’s hilt.

  “They are up to something,” Fox said quietly. “This has a bad feeling to it. Something is wrong here. The air is tainted in a way that I am not quite able to . . .”

  “Hush,” Madison said, shaking his head. He knew exactly what Fox was trying to say, but he didn’t want to hear it. Something was way, way off about this entire situation. The area they had entered looked like something of an arena, and he could only imagine what type of fighting went on when its primary patrons were religious fanatics, pirates, and slavers.

  Finally, the last torch was lit, revealing what was clearly meant to be the main attraction. There, in the center of the arena, was a cage. It was about the same size as Fox’s had been, only it was supported by a large, raised dais and was completely empty as far as he could tell from where he stood.

  “I think it’s time to get out of here,” Fox muttered.

  Madison didn’t even have to look back to know that the older man was already backing away. He heard Fox tug at the gate, swear under his breath, and then pull harder when it didn’t open on the first try.

  “Damn it,” he cursed when he was unable to open it. “They seem to have locked us in from the outside. How is that possible?”

  “Because this was a set up the entire time,” Madison said quietly. “They knew that we were here, and they knew that we would be coming to this spot. But how? That’s the question.”

  “Welcome!” a loud, deep voice boomed from across the arena.

  Madison turned toward the speaker and watched as an impossibly-large man strode forth out of the shadows. He was grinning from ear to ear as he came, but it did little to soften his appears than make him look even more horrifying and sinister than he already did. Madison had seen this man before, and he would never forget him. The giant clocked in at just under seven feet tall, and just like last time, he was dressed in nothing other than a pair of loose-fitting, dark-black pants. His exposed upper torso was framed by broad shoulders and capped with a mountainous chest, and he had thick, veiny arms that were covered in thick, black hair and muscle. Madison knew that his chest was crisscrossed with scars as well, proof of the numerous battles that he had been in and walked away from, and he remembered all too well what an imposing figure this gargantuan man was from up close. He also recalled exactly what type of monster he was. He had forced Madison to watch as he savagely whipped another man, someone whom he knew and had served with, for failing to answer his questions.

  Madison kept his mouth shut and watched as the self-proclaimed pirate king made his way to the center of the arena. He stood there in the middle of the light and held his arms out wide as if he were proudly welcoming a formal delegation.

  “Welcome!” he called again, his voice booming through the night air. “I have been waiting for this moment for some time now. You might not believe this, but I have been searching for you since the very night we met!”

  Madison planted his sword blade-first into the ground in front of him and casually leaned forward onto the pommel while watching Garin Fane put on what looked like the opening scene in a theatrical show. He never would have guessed that the pirate was given over to theatrics, but this was already shaping up to be a promising performance.

  “You’re a hard man to find,” Garin continued, pointing at Madison. “I thought for certain that you must have drowned that night on the boat. We searched through the wreckage on the beaches for days without finding your body, and I had finally accepted the fact that you had been taken down to the depths.

  “Imagine my surprise when you turned up alive. Tales circulated through Lukerest and Marpot of a strange and vindictive slave who slaughtered his captors with his bare hands before running off into the woods and just vanishing without a trace. Unusual, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was something else: it was how they described this man. They said that he was vile and cunning, that he was dressed in a way they had never seen before. He was cool and calm and never broke a sweat, even when threatened with violence. They said he laughed to himself in battle as he cut through his victims.

  “Now, you can imagine that this piqued my interest. ‘Who is this man who can kill dozens of men on his own with nothing more than his bare hands without going down in a fight?’ ‘How does this man manage to disappear without anyone having the foggiest clue as to where he might have gone?’ ‘What is this lowly runaway slave so valuable that someone raised a bounty on his head worth enough money to make a man a king for the rest of his days?’ Then they told me: He wore the mark of the Legion. They said he claimed to have sailed with Janos. It was then I knew that I had found you. And how fortuitous it was! I thought that Janos’s treasure was lost at sea on that stormy night. I thought you were dragged to the bottom of the sea by the Reefk, but here you are. You cannot imagine what deals I have made to find you. You cannot imagine the people who have died pursuing you. You cannot imagine what has gone into this whole operation, to all of this”—he gestured broadly with his arms for a second time—“just so that I could find you again.”

  Madison heard Fox growl behind him, and he knew that the lord must have been set on edge after hearing that speech. Garin was basically declaring that Fox’s son had been murdered, his daughter captured, and he tortured all as a ruse to lure Madison in. Fane’s story was tantamount to claiming that dragging an entire country into the war was more or less secondary to finding and catching Madison, and that would have set any man on edge, even ignoring the fact that its ruling lord was also a grieving father. Madison knew that the pirate was embellishing things quite a bit. He was also overlooking a couple of key facts that twisted the entire tale completely. He failed to mention that he was working for the goddess, and he neglected to mention that Stargrave was going to be dragged into the war one way or another as long as she saw fit. He also made no mention of K’yer Utane or the forces that were at work within the school, though it was possible was ignorant of those.

  Madison heaved a heavy sigh and leaned forward, rocking back and forth on his sword as if he were bored and looking for something to entertain himself with. He kept silent for a time and simply waited to see if Garin was going to continue with his story or if he was going to reach a point anytime soon.

  The crowd along the edges of the arena started murmuring quietly amongst themselves when Madison didn’t respond, and then the noise grew quickly. What started as whispered questions grew as they started shouting invectives, and by the time they were completely riled up, there were as many taunts and insults being thrown at him as if he had somehow insulted their mothers and wives. He didn’t know if this was their way of psyching themselves up for a battle or if they were just giving themselves over to the mob mentality, but it was amusing to watch and listen to.

  He looked back over his shoulder at Shay
na and smiled. “Doesn’t this just remind you of home?” he asked sarcastically, his voice only barely audible over the loud taunts.

  Her eyes grew slightly wider, and then she actually smiled and giggled at his joke. It was completely uncharacteristic of her, and it was then he realized that he had never actually seen her look happy. She was always sarcastic or serious or committed or resolute. He had never actually seen her just sit and smile at something, and as strange as it was to see now, he thought that it was absolutely marvelous to watch.

  “There is a good chance that we are going to die here, you know,” Fox snarled. “Now is not the time to give yourself over to glib amusement.”

  “Then start praying, old man,” Madison said, finally standing upright and turning back to face Garin. “Get down on your knees and pray to whatever god or deity you believe in. They’ll take you prisoner, they’ll beat you, and they’ll torture you—only because they’re idiots—but you won’t die. Not today. They’ll ransom you back to your people for a staggering price, and then you’ll travel home a broken and feeble man, worthless to everyone.”

  Lord Fox guffawed, but before he could deny the allegation, Madison turned and looked him in the eyes and said, “We know all about your dealings, Fox. I don’t know why the goddess wants you alive and in charge of Stargrave, but I’m going to find out eventually. I know all about the deals you made with Ryder to save your people. You may not realize this yet, but you are as much a pawn in this game as your daughter is. Ryder rode east the same day you left K’yer Utane to stick his nose in the war there, and it’s not likely in the manner you’d prefer. The slavers took you hostage against the goddess’s express wishes, so you have nothing to fear from them. You will return home one way or another. If anyone dies here today, it will be me and the girls. But not you.”

  Madison gripped the pommel of his sword so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He stared at the empty cage in front of him and felt the quiet rage start to burn within him. It was the same anger that he had felt when he thought that Shayna was going to die on the mountain, and like a low-burning flame, it simply smoldered.

  “Where is she?!” Madison shouted. His voice was as cold as ice, and none of the ire he felt within him made it into his words. The jeering crowd fell silent as his voice cut through them all, stifling their shouts in their throats.

  “Where is who?” Garin called back ignorantly, his large grin splitting his bushy, black beard once again.

  “Don’t waste my time,” Madison shouted back. “It doesn’t generally end well.”

  “So I’ve heard!” Garin threw his head back and laughed, and the booming laugh resonated through the empty air, creating an ominous feeling all on its own. “You seem to be quite demanding for a dead man!” He beamed proudly while exposing his yellowed teeth as if he had just shared a major secret. “It all makes sense now!”

  Madison waited patiently for the explanation. This was the second time that someone had said he was supposed to be dead within the same night, and he was starting to wonder where it was coming from. He felt like he had narrowly escaped death a number of times since coming to this world, but not a single one of those instances had occurred when any of these people were there to witness it.

  “Come here!” Garin shouted, holding his hand out to the side and gesturing for someone to come and join him.

  The same man that Madison had seen earlier, the one who had run screaming after being the first to label him a dead man, tentatively stepped forward out of the shadows and into the flickering torchlight. He stared down at the ground as if he were afraid to look up, and he stopped just outside of Garin’s reach as if he were afraid of being struck.

  “Is this him?” Garin asked loudly so that everyone could hear. The sailor gave a slight nod as if he were afraid to speak. “You’re certain? This is him? The man risen from the dead? Come back to haunt us all?” The sailor nodded more confidently this time, but it still wasn’t enough to satisfy the larger man. “This is the man you watched die? The man you saw betrayed? The man she killed?”

  Madison’s interest picked up at that word and then again when the sailor nodded for a second time.

  “So, tell me: How is it that a dead man is standing in front of me? Speak!” Garin shouted.

  “I-I don’t know!” the man wailed, clearly terrified. “We killed ‘im. She killed ‘im. She said he’d never bother us again! We saw ‘im disappear, but ‘ere ‘e is!”

  “You betrayed him!” Garin roared. “You left him for dead! And yet here he is?!”

  “Y-yes!” The lesser man quailed, clearly rattled by being in the presence of what he thought was a ghost and someone as domineering as Garin.

  “So, it really is him then,” Garin said much more quietly. “I was wrong! There might still be one man living who can beat me after all!”

  Madison ripped his sword from the ground and stalked forward impatiently. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. He had no idea what this ruse was about, but he was growing tired of it. He had a feeling that whatever this man was talking about was a key to his past and quite likely his missing memories, but it only set him on edge to think about the fact that someone as filthy as these two might know more about him than he knew about himself. It left him anxious and uneasy to think that he might have had past dealings with two loathsome characters such as them. The dragon had told him that Alyanna was the key to recovering those memories, and he clung to that hope desperately now since there was no alternative if something happened to her.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, stopping just on the edge of the firelight. “I don’t know who you think I am or why it matters, but you’re right about one thing: If you keep screwing with me, you will die.”

  “Yeah, that’s more like it,” Garin growled contentedly. “Maybe you are him. I can’t believe you’re the same simpering mess I let escape from the boat that night. It drove me crazy thinking about how some pathetic, lowlife scum managed to escape with Janos’s treasure right from under my nose. It made my skin crawl to think how you must be laughing at me day in and day out. But now . . . Yeah, this makes sense, Captain.”

  Garin spat the title out as derisively as Madison had ever heard, and he couldn’t stop himself from sneering at it. That was the type of loathing he could get behind and use to his advantage. He still had no idea what they were talking about, but they didn’t know that.

  “Makes sense that you’d be working with traitorous scum,” Madison shouted loudly enough for almost everyone to hear. His words were scornful and insulting, and he didn’t bother holding back. He knew that this was escalating to a fight—it was only a matter time until someone threw a punch or swung a sword—so there was no point mincing words. His only two goals were to find Alyanna and make it out with everyone alive. Beyond that, it didn’t matter what he said or whom he pissed off. “What’s it like knowing you have someone working with you who betrayed you all? Someone who betrayed a captain?” He turned and peered into the darkness as if he were addressing the unseen pirates while keeping Garin lined in the corner of his vision. “Do you all sleep well at night knowing that he would turn on you too? Plant a knife in your back? Of course you do! How does it feel knowing that Garin Fane also betrayed you to the goddess so that he could get what he wanted? That he used you?

  “You used to be a free people! You used to be a proud, hard-working people!” There was a slight murmur at his words, and he knew that he had struck a chord. Madison paced back and forth as he finished his contemptuous speech, the tip of his sword bobbing up and down over the ground as if punctuating his words. “And yet here you are!” he continued mockingly. “Working with filthy slavers! You’re getting involved in the affairs of politics and nations like you give a damn about any of them! And you’re doing it on dry land!”

  Madison turned to face Garin again. Quietly, he said, “I never had Janos’s treasure. You’ve been chasing ghosts for months, you dumbass. I don’t know who you think I am, but holy shit, wh
at a colossal waste of time. I almost feel sorry for you.”

  Garin’s teeth clenched together, and his face started turning red. The veins in his forearms and neck popped out as his hand worked back and forth as he clenched his sword.

  “Aww . . . Don’t be so upset,” Madison said pityingly as if he were speaking to a child. “It’ll be over soon.” He turned his back on Garin and started walking away as he if were finished but turned back after only a few steps. “Oh, and don’t worry,” he said in a low conspiratorial tone. “I won’t tell them what a colossal blunder you made!” Madison winked at him to sell the taunt and then turned and strode away. Despite his false bravado, he knew what a horrible move it was to turn his back to someone that could likely cleave him in half with a single stroke of his sword, and he wanted to push as much distance between them as he could as quickly as he could.

  “Bring her to me!” Garin roared. “Bring me that wench this instant!”

  Madison smiled to himself, satisfied with the reaction he had evoked. Yeah. That’s better. He stopped when he was halfway between Garin and his own little group and turned to face the center of the arena once again. He felt like he had taken control of the situation, and that was exactly what he had needed to happen if he was going to keep everyone in one piece and make it out alive. There was no way that he would be able to pull it off as long as Garin was in charge, and Madison knew that he had to keep the pirate off balance and off tempo, and he felt like he had just taken a step in the right direction.

  There was a bunch of movement off to his right, and he watched as two people appeared at the edge of the light there, one leading the other. They passed into the shadowy ring of darkness between the center of the arena and the edges along the wall, and Madison listened attentively as a struggle took place. He knew that Alyanna was being led out on display like a horse at auction, but he refused to show any emotion despite the welling sense of anxiety and anticipation he felt. Garin wanted him to lose his temper and go in swinging, but Madison knew he couldn’t do that—not just yet, anyway. He had no idea how many men there were surrounding the edges of the arena, but he knew that they wouldn’t take too kindly to him mowing down one or two of their own.