“Shut up,” a female voice responded. “He’s got a gun. See?”
Looking back, he saw two men in dark suits closing in on him. He tried to free his P37, but a fresh spasm of pain sent him the rest of the way to the floor. A moment later, two pairs of hands lifted him roughly to his feet and began dragging him along. Drake wanted to struggle, but his limbs would not obey his commands. The heat in his chest was increasing, and his eyesight was failing. Whatever poison they had used, it was incredibly strong.
He barely heard the feral shouts of the spectators as they passed near the cage. Not that any of them would interfere. They would allow him to be abducted and never give it another thought. By now, he could see virtually nothing. It was as if his eyes had been shrouded by the densest fog imaginable. Only a crash of the bar door slamming behind them and the feel of the brisk night air on his face told him that they were now outside.
He then heard a screeching of tires and the sound of a sliding door being yanked open.
“Let’s go,” said a gruff voice just ahead.
The two men hurled him into the back of what he imagined to be a cargo van. The floor was bare metal, and the air inside smelled of oil and wood.
“Make sure he doesn’t slide around. Boss says he’s to get there in one piece.”
The door slammed shut, and a strong pair of hands pressed down on his chest.
“He’s in bad shape,” said the man holding him. “You sure we didn’t give him too much?”
The van lurched forward.
“How should I know?” The answer came from the front. “I just used what I had.”
Drake tried to gauge his surroundings. Three men; two in the front and one with him in the back. They had taken his weapon. And if the poison wasn’t meant to kill him, he would recover. But how long would that take? Whoever had planned this must have known about his resistance – which meant they would probably also know the proper dosage needed to keep him immobilized. Luckily, he was still conscious, though the pain in his chest was making him almost wish that he weren’t.
He could feel that they were pulling onto the highway heading west. He went over in his mind what lay in that direction. They were on the border, so that meant just more taverns and black market warehouses. Nothing there to tell him where they might be going or who these men were working for. Though he did have a couple of good guesses.
He tried to speak, but his tongue was swollen and his throat almost closed, and after about five minutes he gave up trying. He should have been more cautious. If Troi had been infiltrated, they might possibly have known he would come here first. Never be predictable – that was hawker rule number one. Followed closely by Never let your guard down. He had broken both of them. A huge mistake. And if he didn’t shake off the poison soon enough, it could easily be his last.
“What the hell is that?” shouted the driver.
Drake was sent sliding hard into the back of the seat in front as the van screeched to a halt. A second later, he felt the vehicle bounce up and down in reaction to all three men rapidly scrambling to get outside. This was followed by the click of weapons and the scraping of hard shoes on pavement.
“Where the hell did he go?” one of the men growled
Hellfire! The familiar scent reached Drake first, and then the lights dancing in his eyes from outside confirmed it: there was a mage out there. And one powerful enough to cast hellfire. He knew what was about to happen even before the first shot rang out. All firing at once, the men emptied their weapons in mere seconds.
He could hear them still scrambling to reload when a calm voice said, “Are you gentlemen quite done?”
A short, high-pitched hiss was rapidly overtaken by a great whoosh of flames. Instantly, the inside of the van became overpoweringly hot. Drake tried once again to move but was still immobilized by the poison. The screams of the dying men sent a chill down his spine. Hellfire was just about as painful a death as one could imagine. Poor bastards, he thought. He had only seen it used once, but the contorted scream seared into the victim’s features was still clear in his memory. His P37 could create it in very small bursts, but anything more than that and his weapon would shatter to pieces. Hellfire was just too powerful.
The heat continued to intensify. The men were now silent. Dead, he assumed.
“I think maybe I went a bit too far,” came the same calm voice. “And you are going to be quite a load to carry.”
Drake was dragged from the van. His eyesight was starting to improve somewhat, allowing him to see a hazy image of the man tugging him along. His features, though, were still impossible to make out.
“I should have parked closer,” the man complained, grunting heavily with each step.
After a couple of minutes, Drake was bundled into the seat of a car.
“I’m not sure what it was they gave you, but I do need you to be calm for a while,” he said. “So please forgive me for this.”
The moment the words had been spoken, Drake felt as if a large hammer had struck him right between the eyes.
Total blackness immediately followed.
Chapter Seven
The wind felt nice on Drake’s face, raising memories of driving Cal with the top down. It was a simple pleasure, but one of the few experiences since his exile that was sure to bring about a rare moment of joy.
Such pleasant thoughts vanished in a flash as his eyes popped open. He could see clearly now. Sure enough, he was traveling along in Cal, but only as a passenger. Someone else was doing the driving. A man in a long blue coat and well-fitted black pants and shirt was leaning back in the seat, his hand resting lightly on the wheel. At once he recognized the face: Bane. Instinctively, Drake’s hand flew to his weapon.
“Your gun is in the back seat,” Bane remarked almost absently.
“What the hell is going on?” Drake demanded.
“I’m taking you to Fisk,” he replied, smiling.
Drake looked to the back. Yes, his P37 was right there, and it was within fairly easy reach. “Is that right?” he said.
“Yes, and before you think about doing anything foolish, check your left leg.”
Drake reached down and felt something that had been wrapped around his thigh. His heart sank. He knew precisely what it was. “What’s the range?” he asked.
Bane shrugged. “No more than twenty feet, I should think. Never really bothered finding out for sure. Oh, by the way, that one has a deadman’s switch attached. You know…just in case you try to get clever.”
Drake had used these before: mana tethers. If the runner moved too far away, the device automatically exploded. And if he was being told the truth about this one having a deadman’s trigger, simply killing Bane and disabling it was not an option.
“What’s Fisk paying you?” he demanded.
Bane chuckled, shaking his head. “You think you can offer more?”
“Yes.”
“You know I can’t do that. What good is a hawker if you can’t trust them to complete their mission?”
“But I thought Fisk wanted me dead.”
“He does. But I’m not an assassin, so he’ll have to do that job himself.” He gave Drake a sideways grin. “It is a genuine pleasure to meet you, by the way. You’re a true legend. A pity it can’t be under better circumstances.”
Drake reached into the back and retrieved his weapon. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“By all means. It won’t fire. I disabled the mana chamber.”
A simple fix, he thought. And a mistake for Bane to be free with that information. Unless he was lying, of course. But the man was not known for being careless, even though he looked far too young to have fully earned his impressive reputation. Drake noted that the only weapon he appeared to be carrying was a large knife on his belt. Not that Bane needed anything else. His magic was all the weaponry he required.
“Is it true that the men of the royal guard have a vex crystal inserted into their chests?” Bane asked.
Dra
ke cocked his head. Only a counted few people knew of this. It was how they channeled mana and what gave them certain types of resistance. Normally he would deny it. But right now, he wanted to keep Bane talking. “A small one, yes,” he admitted. “Where did you hear that?”
“You hear things at the College of Mages. It must hurt like hell. How do you tolerate it?”
“You get used to it.”
Bane looked skeptical. “I suppose. All the same, it seems like a lot of trouble just for tough skin and some extra stamina.”
“It’s more than that, I promise you.”
“I guess so. It certainly saved you from that poison those guys put in your food.” He pointed to the glove box. “I almost forgot – Dorn said to tell you that the tracking device wasn’t a tracking device at all.”
“Is he still alive?”
Bane laughed. “Of course he is. Why would I kill Dorn? Seeing as how you were with me, he was more than happy to let me take Cal. Good thing, too. I would have hated to steal her.”
Drake breathed a sigh of relief and then opened the glove box. Inside was the switch, together with a bundle of wires wrapped around a small metal orb. A bomb.
“He said it was a damn good thing you got him to check it out,” Bane continued. “Said it would have killed anyone sitting in the passenger’s seat before they knew what had happened. Oh, yeah, and he also disabled anything else Troi could have used to track you. Not that it matters now.”
A frown formed as Drake mulled over this news. Why would Xavier plant a bomb? Killing the prince would not help him in the slightest. Of course, it was always possible that Xavier knew nothing about it. One thing was certain: when he got out of this mess, he would definitely be looking to beat some answers out of the dear captain. His frown deepened. On the other hand, getting out of this mess might prove to be damn near impossible. Bane was unlikely to slip up. And Fisk was known to be both brutal and highly efficient when it came to killing.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“Not far,” Bane replied. “We’ll get there in a few hours. So relax.”
There was little else he could do at present but just sit there and allow himself to be delivered to a man who wanted him dead. His eyes ran carefully over the rival hawker, taking in every detail. Youthful looking or not, he was certain now that Bane’s reputation was well deserved. Which would make killing him much more satisfying, if the opportunity came.
For a time, the drive was made in utter silence, aside from Bane occasionally humming to himself. After crossing the border, Drake had expected them to veer toward the outer province of Zanabar. Instead, they turned northeast into Arbor. This was the region where most of Vale’s produce was grown, and Troi made sure it was very well guarded indeed. In fact, there were more royal guards stationed here than in the city itself. Added to this, the magistrate imposed direct control over all law enforcement measures in the area. If Fisk were conducting business here, he was either insane or even better connected than Drake could have guessed.
Mile after mile of fences charged with mana ran along both sides of the road. Behind these were the fields that nearly every soul living in Vale depended on for food. Above the fields, mana streams burned brightly as they delivered power to the hundreds of facilities responsible for the maintenance and harvesting of the crops. Working here was a good job, if you could get it. At least you never went hungry, even though the labor could be back-breaking at times. Smart agro-workers had small fields of their own, usually hidden away somewhere in the outer provinces. The seeds here were far better than those the poor could acquire, if indeed they could find any at all. Though the soil wasn’t nearly as fertile outside of Arbor and the yield smaller, one could still make enough money to retire in relative comfort from the income of a single field. Unless, of course, you were caught. Selling black market produce was about as serious a crime as murder.
“I heard once that the ancients had fields like this larger than the whole of Vale itself,” Bane remarked offhandedly, breaking the silence. “Ever wonder what it was like back then?”
“Not really. What good would that do?”
“I don’t know. I just wonder sometimes how it would be if everyone had enough to eat. You know, like if you didn’t have to be born in Troi just to get ahead in life.”
“From what I’ve read, the ancients were warlike barbarians who destroyed their world. I don’t think I’d want to go there.”
Bane shot him a sideways look. “That’s what we’ve all been told. But what if it’s not true?”
Drake straightened. “Have you ever been to the barrier?”
“No.”
“Well, I have. Believe me – it’s true. Beyond Vale there is nothing but wasteland.”
Why anyone would doubt this was impossible for Drake to understand. Even so, some still did. They imagined the world of the ancients to have been some kind of paradise, and that the lessons all children were taught were propaganda and lies. But he had seen the devastation with his own eyes. Nothing lived outside the barrier; there was only sand and dust as far as the eye could see. The wars had ravaged the entire planet, and only Vale brought any hope of redemption – the hope that the high mages would eventually find a way to heal the land…one day in the indiscernible future.
After a time the road narrowed, taking them past a succession of large warehouses and open lots filled with farming equipment. The smell of chemicals was in the air, and even over the wind coming in through the window Drake could hear the buzz and whir of machinery.
They eventually pulled in behind a tall silver silo where three other vehicles were parked nearby. Bane got out of Cal and waited for Drake to do the same.
“Before we go in,” he began, “I want you to know that I really am sorry about this. It’s just a job, after all.”
Disgusted with himself as much as with Bane, Drake did not bother replying. How many times had those very same words come out of his own mouth? How many times had a runner pleaded to be let go, and he had ignored them? Many deserved their fate. But some did not, and he knew the difference. He knew, and didn’t care.
Bane led him around the silo to where a steel trapdoor was set in the ground. He stomped on this three times and waited. Drake scanned the area, spotting three cameras, one of which was trained directly on the trapdoor. The deep clunk of a mechanism turning sounded, and a rush of air exited from around its edges.
Bane stepped back and gestured to a recess in the steel. “I think I’ll let you open it.”
When Drake did not move, he took another threatening step back and raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want to find out the range of that tether?”
Drake’s jaw tightened as he resisted the urge to make what would almost certainly be a suicidal jump on his captor. There was always a trigger, and Bane was sure to have his at the ready. Reaching down, with a great effort he raised the heavy door up on its hinges, revealing a stone stairway.
Drake entered with Bane just a few feet behind him. The steps ended in a long passageway that split left and right. Bane pointed left, and they continued this way until reaching a gray metal door. Through this was a small room with three cages at the far end, each just large enough to hold one man. Bane nodded toward the cage in the middle.
“You’ll need to wait in here,” he said. “I have to collect my bounty first.” He held out his hand. “Your weapon, if you don’t mind.”
With little option, Drake gave him his P37 and entered the cage. Once he was secured inside, he watched Bane place the gun on a small table in the corner and then walk over to the door. A wave of panic struck him.
“Where are you going?” he called out. “The collar!”
Bane gave him a sheepish grin. “Don’t worry. It’s not real.”
Drake fumed. “You son of a bitch.”
“Sorry,” he replied. “I hope you don’t hold it against me.”
The moment the door closed, Drake ripped the tether away. He then set about
examining the lock to the cage. It was a good one. Even so, with a few simple tools, he might have had a chance of picking it. As it was, though, he had nothing suitable on him. Not a damn thing! And the bars were way too thick to bend. He gave them a sharp kick before sliding to the floor. He would definitely be killing Bane the first chance he got. Though he had to admit, the anger raging inside was as much against himself. He should have seen through such a basic ruse. He was slipping. Now he needed to get sharp in a big hurry if he was going to make it out of here alive.
After about an hour, the door opened and Fisk entered the room. He was dressed in a tan shirt and black pants, with a black fedora covering his round head.
“I was surprised to hear you were caught so easily,” he remarked, his voice deep and rumbling. “Bane was a bit disappointed, given your reputation.”
“Did you come here to gloat?”
“Not at all,” he replied, waving his hand. “I just wanted to check that Bane was not attempting some sort of deception. He is known for that…as I gather you discovered for yourself.”
The taunt stung Drake, and although he tried to conceal this fact, he knew that it showed. “What’s in this for you?” he asked. “Because if it’s money you want...”
Fisk shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ve become involved in something way beyond your understanding. There is absolutely nothing you can offer that will change what is about to happen.”
Drake could see the resolve in his eyes. “Will you at least tell me who hired you?”
“Why? It will only anger you. I was given specific instructions. So no. I will not be telling you anything.” He turned to the door. “But don’t worry. I will see that it is quick and painless.”
Drake let out a roar of anger the moment the door closed.
No, stay calm, he told himself, after a few seconds of venting his rage. You need to focus. There has to be a way out of this.
He examined the lock again. If he had his P37, dealing with it would be a simple matter. A mage would be able to open it easily enough too. As it was, the vex crystal in his chest all but prevented him from using magic in a traditional way. He concentrated instead on drawing mana inside himself. The heat in his chest began to build, but even after trying four times to utilize this, the lock remained stubbornly secure.
The Vale: Behind The Vale Page 8