by Ty Johnston
The woman jumped back from the door and scooted along the floor until she was next to the bed again. She dropped like a stone, closing her eyes.
“Be careful with that one,” one of the guards’ voices came from the doorway. “She can surprise you.”
“Yes, too bad Karitha is no longer here with another sleep spell.” Belgad’s voice grew louder as the big man entered the bedroom. “Considering she’s been awake for several minutes, I’m sure she’s heard enough to want to put up quite a fight.”
Adara’s eyes popped open.
She stared up at Belgad.
The big man’s hands enveloped her mouth. “My apologies, but the more you struggle, the more you will suffer.
***
Adara did not fight. There was little reason to give Belgad justification in abusing her. Whatever would be her fate, she would try to meet it with some dignity. She did not need to remind herself she had been born nobility.
The bald Dartague tugged the woman along, nearly dragging her down a flight of stairs, through a long hall of dark stone and eventually into the open. Each of the big man’s steps was purposeful, but also reluctant, as if he did not enjoy his current task.
Adara stared at the last of the dying sun on the horizon, noting the daylight would not linger another ten minutes.
“Move!” One of Belgad’s men shoved her from behind.
Adara could barely keep on her feet with Belgad pulling her along so quickly and forcefully.
The woman and the Dartague, along with Fortisquo and Belgad’s four guards, meandered their way through a maze of streets. With buildings blocking sight of the castle, Adara quickly lost her sense of direction, though Belgad seemed to know where they were heading.
Eventually the troupe entered an open area, what appeared to be a marketplace that had been cleared. A hundred feet ahead of them rose the city’s walls, four times as tall as a man and as thick as a stone’s throw. A pair of gigantic iron doors stood open, and Adara could see beyond a tent city filled with soldiers in black going about their military routines.
Belgad led them to the open door where they were greeted by another big man in black armor; on one arm he wore a round shield painted black with white striping the edges.
“Take her.” Belgad shoved Adara forward.
Captain Lendo caught the woman with his free arm. “Want to do it yourself?” he asked the Dartague.
“I find your Kobalan amusements not to my taste,” Belgad said, his thin smile showing he was not altogether happy with the situation.
“You’re not nearly as tough as your reputation.” Lendo grinned then turned away, tugging Adara along with him into the mass of upright canvass.
Keeping her dignity while with Belgad had been simple, but now Adara was unnerved. She had not expected to be turned over to the Kobalans in so brusque a manner.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
Lendo slammed his shield into her face, knocking Adara back and sending blood spraying from between her lips. She would have fallen if the captain had not yanked her back by the cords around her raw wrists.
“You don’t ask questions,” the man said, then pulled her on.
Adara glanced about, catching the iron-eyed faces of the hundreds of soldiers surrounding her. Most continued with their business without paying the least attention to her, but a number stopped whatever they were doing to watch with stern curiosity.
Another hard tug and Adara found herself standing in a a circle of triangle tents with a small camp fire in the center. Tents spread as far as she could see until her eyes reached the towering walls of Mogus Potere.
Lendo let loose of her bindings and waved at a group of men to one side.
The group, eight in all, tromped forward carrying a wooden beam nearly as thick as a man’s waist.
“What is this?” Adara asked, true fear in her voice.
“Hold her down,” Lendo ordered without looking at her.
The eight dropped the cumbersome pole and two grabbed Adara from behind, pulling her down to the ground as she realized her fate and began to struggle.
“Hammer.” Lendo held out a hand.
One of the soldiers supplied a black iron mallet.
“Nails.”
Another man placed four rough nails, each nearly as long as a dagger, into the captain’s waiting hand.
“Hold her against the wood,” Lendo said.
The two men gripping Adara drug her to the thick piece of timber. She tried to fight, but a cuffing sent her into a near stupor. One of the two lifted her arms above her head and held her wrists to the wood. The other man drew a dagger and cut away her black boots, then gripped her ankles.
Lendo shrugged his shield off and knelt next to the woman, the hammer in one of his hands and the nails in the other. “This is going to hurt,” he said with a grin. “Scream all you want.”
The captain placed a nail against slender, crossed wrists.
As the hammer raised above the captain’s head, Adara’s mind raced back to Kron, then to her mother and father and to the green lands of Corvus Vale, her homeland in East Ursia. She had not seen Kron in many a day. She had not seen her home in many a year. A tear came to her eyes.
The hammer slammed down.
***
Her thoughts were hazy, muddled as she hung in the cool night breeze. Her arms were upraised, stretched above with her head hanging between, the limbs pinned to the wood by a pair of black, bloody nails. Her body was in shock, numbing her to the metal pins ripping through her wrists and ankles and impaling her on the upright log. She was not suspended high, her feet barely above the lingering fire, though the heat too she did not feel.
The wind played with her hair, swinging the dark strands around her face as she stared out across the low hills to the south of the city. Her eyes lingered on two horseback figures at the top of one of the hills, a dirt path leading from them down to the tents. In her fevered mind, she wished the figures were Kron and Randall, just to see them one last time.
Her body slumped, causing her breathing to grow more harsh, but she managed to lift herself on a stub of wood, the only kindness afforded her by her captors. The Kobalans had hammered the thick dowel into the timber below her feet just before raising the beam over the fire. Lifting her body on her weak, ripped ankles was all that allowed her to catch her breath.
Adara twisted her head to stare at the flames below, and she wondered how long it would take her to die. Then her mind turned full on death, wondering what would happen to her. She had been raised in the East, indoctrinated with the teachings of Ashal, the god who had walked among men. Her parents had been righteous folk, simple nobility of a simple land. There had never been any questioning of the Ashalite church, but now Adara wondered. Fear made her question. Would she receive the holy rewards the church had offered? Or would she earn eternal damnation for her sins? Or would there be nothing, an endless blankness. That last thought was the most comforting.
A prodding at her feet brought the woman’s drifting head up again. Captain Lendo was below, a club in one hand smacking against her pinned feet.
“Be a good girl and linger a bit,” he said with a grin. “Eventually you’ll feel the pain again, and then the screams will start.”
Adara allowed her chin to fall once more. She would not give the man the pleasure of seeing her tortured further. She slumped, and this time did not push herself up.
Her breathing grew harder, coming in great, shallow gasps.
Lendo jabbed her leg with his club, but the captain’s punishment went unnoticed. Adara’s body was still numb, and her mind was already dim.
She closed her eyes, allowing the brightness of the night’s fire to die away. Swirls of light bounced around behind her closed lids, but Adara would not allow herself to see again.
It was time.
A final gasp of air filled her lungs, was exhaled sharply, then the woman knew no more. Her body slumped further, the iron nails tearing a
t the flesh of her wrists.
Soldiers approached.
“Leave her,” Lendo said. “Allow the crows their breakfast.”
***
“Poor soul.”
Kron twisted in his saddle to glance back at Markwood. “I take it you mean the crucifixion.”
Markwood nodded. They were atop a low hill, staring at the hundreds of tents below them and the dark walls of Mogus Potere beyond. In the moon’s light, Kron could just make out the edges of cliffs behind the city and the gray Northern Sea beyond.
“Looks like a woman from here,” the old wizard said, “but it’s difficult to tell at this distance.”
“Can you do anything for the person?” Kron asked.
Markwood shook his head. “It might alert Verkain to our presence. Freeing one poor soul would do us little good in saving Randall.”
Kron pointed at the distant figure hanging from wood. “Is that Randall’s fate?”
“Possibly. Verkain will want the execution public.”
“I’ve been wondering why he gathered his armies here,” Kron said.
“He has something planned,” Markwood said, “but I’d say it’s something more than Randall. He wouldn’t need all these soldiers just to witness an execution, even of his son.”
Kron stared for a few more minutes, watching the crucified figure grow still as one of many soldiers in black prodded it with some sort of weapon.
Finally, he said, “We need to keep moving.”
Markwood nodded again, and pointed to the west, around the city and the tents outside its walls.
“Are you sure?” Kron asked.
“There’s a beach behind the city,” Markwood said. “From there we can climb the cliffs to a hidden entrance. It should take us into Verkain’s dungeons, and from there we can make our way into the city itself.”
“How do you know these things?” Kron asked.
“I’m a wizard. I know lots of things.”
They rode on, not looking back at the unmoving form of the hanging woman.
Chapter Nine
Kron hauled himself up the silken cord another few inches, his small iron grapnel latched to a rock formation far over his head. Above the climber was more of the rugged cliff side he had been ascending for an hour, the sharp crags revealed by moonlight. Below was a long, rocky drop to the Northern Sea. The cold breezes blowing off the waters did not help the climber, nor did the wizard who Kron had last seen far below on a beach of pebbles.
The man in black hugged the rope and rested a foot on an outcropping. He needed to catch his breath. The ascent had been strenuous, straight up the side of the cliff behind and below the city of Mogus Potere. Glancing up, in the glow of the moon Kron could make out where the cliffs ended and the high wall around the city began. Markwood had said there was an entrance to the place on the outer wall facing the sea; the secret doorway was supposed to be an iron grate that, once removed, would allow access to the city’s dungeon system.
Kron grinned as he pulled himself up further. It wasn’t Bond, but he was returning to a city. He had spent much of his life in the wilds, mostly around the Prisonlands, but he loved city life with all its action, sights, smells and sounds. He felt alive in a city. Masonry did him good.
Kron reached the top of the cliff in a quarter of an hour. Greeting him there, where a slim lip of land gave way to the tall dark walls of the city, was Maslin Markwood.
“How?” Kron asked as he gathered his silk rope and wrapped it into a loop.
“After I freed our horse, I hitched a ride with a moth.” The wizard’s grin was wide.
“Have you found the entrance?” Kron asked.
Markwood pointed ahead of them. “There’s a hidden door in the wall,” he said. “I managed to find it with a little scrying.”
Kron tied his rope to his belt. “Can you open it?”
“Without difficulty,” the wizard replied, “but what concerns me is what lies beyond.”
“You said it would take us to the lower dungeons.”
“That’s what concerns me,” Markwood said. “There are likely to be guards, and if one of them alerts the castle, we will lose the element of surprise.”
“I can handle any guards,” Kron said.
“You can’t take on an army, and if I expend myself on Verkain’s soldiers, I won’t be in condition to face the king himself.”
“We’re here to free Randall,” Kron said. “It’s him who has to face Verkain, not you. We just need to rescue him.”
“If Verkain realizes I am here, he won’t hesitate to try and destroy me,” Markwood said.
“That’s why you have me.” Kron grinned a dark grin.
***
Belgad sat back on a cushioned chair in the center of the apartments Verkain had afforded him and the others. It had been a trying day, but the barbarian was not ready for sleep.
“Karitha and Adara,” Fortisquo said as he glided into the room from a door to an outer chamber. “Such a waste of beauty. Makes one believe Verkain has something against women.”
“Verkain has something against everyone.” Belgad motioned to a chair opposite himself.
Fortisquo eased the long sword on his hip to one side and slipped into the seat. “I’ve been meaning to ask you what our next move will be.”
“We do what Verkain wants. We hunt down Markwood and Darkbow.”
“We don’t even know where they are,” Fortisquo said, “and Karitha is no longer available to help find them.”
“Darkbow will make an appearance sooner or later. He always does. Remember Bond?”
Fortisquo frowned while rubbing a finger across the black leather patch covering the empty socket that had once held one of his eyes. “How could I forget the man in black swooping in to play hero.”
“He will try to play hero here also,” Belgad said. “He won’t be able to resist the chance to save Tendbones. We’ll have to be ready for him.”
“And the wizard?”
“Verkain is supplying us with war demons,” Belgad said. “I’ll leave him to them.”
***
The hall Kron and Markwood found themselves slinking along was as black and still as a moonless night sky. The only sources of light were occasional torches hanging from rusting sconces. The only sounds were their own breathing and some irregular distant moans. The only view was of occasional pale green moss layered upon ancient bricks and mortar.
They were in the heart of the dungeons below Mogus Potere where rumor and tradition had it few exited alive.
After passing through the secret door and traveling straight for some little while, they came across an intersection. To the left was more darkness and silence, as was the path ahead. The right was better lit with more torches and a set of stone stairs appeared to one side not far from where they stood.
Kron nodded to the stairway.
Markwood shrugged. “I don’t know the way any more than you.”
“Too dangerous to cast a spell?” Kron asked.
“Far too dangerous inside Verkain’s city,” Markwood said. “He may already have noticed my presence.”
The thudding noise of approaching boots drew their attention once more to the right passage.
“Someone’s coming,” Markwood whispered.
Slowly, as to remain as quiet as possible, Kron unsheathed the long blade he kept on his back. He pointed from Markwood to the darkened corridor on their left.
The mage look nonplussed.
“So they won’t see you.” Kron gently pushed the wizard into the darkness, then eased ahead into shadows. As he knelt with his blackened sword at his side, he seemed to disappear from the old man’s sight.
Seconds later four Kobalan soldiers in ebony chain stomped into view from the stairway. Each man carried a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. They did not stop at the intersection, but turned down the path Kron and Markwood had been traveling. Within minutes they were gone, the rattling of their armor growing distant.
Kron eased out of his shadow and slipped his sword into its sheath.
“There’s nothing that way but the cliffs,” Markwood said as he too appeared.
“They’re hunting for us,” Kron said. “Fortunately, they’re none too bright.”
Markwood put a hand to his chest. “I haven’t felt such a thrill since I was your age. For a moment I thought you were going to attack those men.”
“I almost did,” Kron said, “but I wanted to know where they were going. Now I know, and now I suspect Verkain is aware of us.”
“If he knew our exact location, we would be in serious straits,” the wizard pointed out.
Kron stared back at the stone stairs. “Do we go up?”
Markwood nodded. “Beware of more guards.”
***
A wide hall with a low roof opened at the top of the steps. Side tunnels lined the walls, with torches hanging every so often to shed a dull, orange sheen on the surroundings.
Without hesitation, Kron marched forward with Markwood following. They quickly trekked what felt like the length of the room, but there was no sign of the chamber ending.
Kron grunted, determined, and they continued on their way. Soon the air became heavy with pale, gray smoke that whisped around their heads.
Still, they walked.
Kron stared down at his moving feet and noticed the floor no longer appeared so solid. The black stone beneath his boots seemed to move and shift, like snakes in oil, but it felt sturdy enough.
Eventually the side walls vanished in the growing haze of smoke and the torches began to ebb, flickering on the edge of sight.
With only little light, and that distant, Kron stopped and turned back to the wizard.
Markwood was gone.
The man in black was not worried, but he did feel confused. Where had his companion gone? Why were they no longer together? Why were they here in the first place?