He tried to get away from the merciless bite of the leather, but the other faerie held tight to a leather strap fastened around his neck, yanking occasionally. There was no escape. Fresh blood matted the side of the prone creature, and his eyes were dull and hopeless.
Adi shouted, “Stop! Stop!” and covered the remaining distance as quickly as she could. When the guard raised his arm again, she grabbed it reflexively. The second her hand made contact with his impressive biceps, she knew she’d made a mistake. The man whirled around, his arm still raised, ready to punish her for her interference.
Then he stopped. Adi hastily backed away to a safe distance as the faerie dropped his arm. Then he bowed before her, and without saying a word, he gave a signal to the other man. Together they dragged the wolf away. The creature followed them, eyes down, tail between his hind legs—resigned, defeated.
Just before they disappeared behind the hedge, the animal lifted his head, looking back, and Adi was stunned by the blueness of his eyes. They looked so familiar, yet so foreign in their expression. They reminded her of Ho’neo, although she’d never seen the spirit wolf as beaten down as this creature. Maybe here in Faerie, all wolves had those sapphire-blue eyes, she thought.
She had no idea what the animal had done to be whipped like that, but she was under no illusion that her interference had improved the creature’s lot. She needed to help him. Quickly, she followed the strange trio, which had gained some distance while she was considering her options.
30
Honi couldn’t have been out long. When he came to, he was being dragged out of the room down the hallway. His eyelids twitched weakly, then sprang open. He was so confused, so shell-shocked, that he didn’t think to offer much resistance initially.
He had very little idea what was happening to him. Honi’s wolf brain processed information differently from his human brain. At some stage, he’d tried to bite his handler on the leg, just so that he’d stop dragging him by the neck. His reward was a thorough whipping, right there on the flagstones.
When the sharp leather connected with his face for the first time, he yelped. The second time, it cut his front legs and drew blood. The sting was immediate, dulling to a throb after a while. Honi tried to dance out of the way as much as the short leash allowed, but he could not get away from the sure hits of the faerie guard.
He lost count of how many lashes he received. His whining and yelping subsided to a resigned moan as he tried to curl up into himself. And still the faerie guard continued hitting him. Just when Honi was about to black out again, the pain stopped. A final kick to his ribs, and his limp, unresisting body was dragged into a small room.
The wolf had no idea how long he lay there, groaning. Again he cursed his lupine mind that didn’t allow him to rise above the pain inflicted on him and find a way to escape. All he could think of was how much the cuts and bruises hurt. Instinctively, he licked the still-bleeding wounds. His exhaustion and the ordeal he had endured overpowered him after a while, and sleep mercifully took him away.
His raging thirst woke him up with no idea of how much time had passed. He weakly turned his head towards the dim twilight. A small window sat above his head, and it somehow felt like morning, although he couldn’t be sure. A wooden bowl full of water sat in front of him, and he lapped the liquid up greedily.
When he was finished, he tried to get on his feet but couldn’t. Something was holding him down. A short leash tied his collar to a ring on the ground, preventing him from moving more than a few inches. The wolf panicked. Honi couldn’t get the upper hand, no matter how much he tried. Soon, his human mind was subsumed by the animal instinct to fight, to run, to get away.
He tore and bit at the leash until his gums bled and pulled against the strap as hard as he could. Eventually, the wolf collapsed in frustration and exhaustion, having worn himself out.
After dozing for what must have been a couple of hours, the door opened. Honi whined as he recognized the smell that he had come to associate with his cruel treatment. The faerie guard with the hard hands entered the cell. He took the leash off the wolf, but before Honi could enjoy his freedom, he was grabbed by the scruff of his neck and pushed down to the ground again.
A harsh voice whispered next to his ear, “I don’t take pleasure in torturing you, human. Understand that this is my duty to my queen. Just because I don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean I won’t do it diligently. So do us both a favor and don’t try to escape. She will tire of her game, and then I won’t have to hurt you anymore.”
To underline his words, the faerie gave another shake, then stepped back and kicked Honi hard in his already bruised ribs.
Honi lost track of how many days he was tortured like this. He fell into a painful routine. He was given scraps, not regular meals, sometimes kitchen leftovers, sometimes nothing but bones. His powerful teeth cracked them open, and he licked out the fatty marrow before chewing the hard splinters to alleviate his boredom. He came to look forward to the faerie warrior, even though his arrival brought more pain and suffering. It was better than the never-ending boredom of captivity.
His wolf brain craved running outside, hunting, being with other wolves. He missed his human mate. He instinctively knew that he was growing weaker and weaker. He wondered if he could die in this shape, or if he was fused to the spirit wolf and therefore immortal. He thought maybe not, given how he felt his life draining away and his energy decreasing with every beating and every missed meal.
Soon he was too weak even to accept the water that appeared every day next to him. When Honi closed his eyes, he dreamed of a beautiful girl with whiskey-colored eyes and a smile that had once lit up his whole world. He craved her, wished to see her again, and then one day, when he woke up, he heard her voice.
This is it, then, he thought, I must be dying, and these are the final hallucinations to make my path easier. He heard her voice, smelled her scent and felt her soft fingertips caressing his ears. There is no better time to die than now. He was floating away, warm, safe, and in his last moments experiencing the things that had made loving her so easy.
That is, until she pulled his ear and harshly whispered, “No, you don’t.”
He opened one eye to check what was going on and blinked. She was there, in the flesh, kneeling next to him. He might still have believed that it was a hallucination. Except that she was kneeling in his waste, and the hem of her tunic was stained brown with the stinking liquid. He hadn’t expected ever to see her again, and now he was too weak to do anything other than lick her fingers and be grateful for that.
He knew she was crying. He could smell the saltiness of her tears. He wanted to comfort her, but he was too exhausted. Smiling inside, he closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.
There seemed to be a longer time between beatings than usual. He was sure the guard should have come by now, but there was nobody. He wondered how he was still alive, but now that he’d seen Adi again, dying had lost its attraction. He’d much rather stay alive and wait for her to return, because he knew that she would. She had said so.
So when the door opened after another cycle of day and night had passed, and it was the faerie guard, Honi felt very betrayed. In fact, he was furious. But there was nothing he could do about it. Where before, he had been able to think in full sentences, he was now beginning to lose that ability. He could feel his human identity slip away the longer he was in his wolf body. His animal mind was overpowering him.
31
Adi took great care to keep her distance. The faeries approached a gray building situated in the far corner of the courtyard, and she watched them open another heavy door. When the wolf was pulled towards the opening, he began to fight. Using his front legs to dig himself in, he resisted the men pulling on the leash. He only gave up after he was kicked again in the ribs. The animal collapsed with a loud groan that sounded almost human before the limp body was dragged through the doorway.
Adi’s lips pressed tightly together as she witnesse
d the abuse. Her whole body was shaking with anger, although she knew that there was nothing she could do for now. Maybe once the men had taken the wolf and tied him down, she could help him. Even if it was only by feeding him and giving him a sip of water.
Remembering that the queen had ordered that no harm should come to her, she reasoned with herself that maybe she could even get them to let the animal go. Although she would far prefer to free him herself than face a confrontation with the queen’s guards.
When the coast was clear, she ran to the building as quickly as she could. She had no idea what she would find inside, but feared that it would be nothing good. Tugging at the wooden handle attached to the door, she pulled as hard as she could. Little by little, the large, heavy portal swung open, and she slipped inside.
Her nose was immediately assaulted by the stench she’d come to associate with her captivity in the queen’s dungeons. Dirty, sweaty bodies, and an underlying hint of iron that reminded her of the time she’d been attacked by spirit animals and nearly bled to death. The puddle of blood she’d found herself lying in had smelled like this.
Carefully she inched along the walls, hoping to attract no attention. In front of her stretched a long hallway, made of the same rough-hewn gray stones that she’d seen all around the castle. To either side of the hallway, there were heavy doors with square holes covered by iron grating. No faerie would bust their way through those.
The first two cells she peeked into were empty. When she came to the third one, however, she gasped. On a cot in the corner of the tiny square room lay a man. He was naked except for a dirty loincloth. His skin, as far as she could tell under the grime coating it, was bruised black-and-blue. He didn’t move, couldn’t move, judging by his injuries.
Adi couldn’t make herself look away even though the sight nauseated her. His left arm was broken, lying next to his body at an unnatural angle. His feet, strangely vulnerable in their nakedness, were as filthy as the rest of him. Finally Adi made herself look at his face.
Maybe she’d made a noise, but the man’s eyes opened, and Adi’s heart beat even faster. The moment their eyes connected, she recognized him. Without him, she might well be dead now herself.
Florice had paid dearly for helping her. The dullness of his gaze, the unnatural calmness with which he lay in his cell, the pallor of his skin, made him seem more dead than alive. Adi looked around frantically for a way to open his cell, but there was nothing. There was no key, no bolt, nothing she could have used to open the wretched door between her and the faerie warrior.
“Florice! It’s me, Adi,” she whisper-shouted. There was no response, and she couldn’t even be sure Florice was able to see her through the iron grating. Tears of frustration ran down her cheeks as she banged her fist against the door. She tried to suppress her sobs, but the idea that the irrepressible, friendly guy who’d first obeyed the queen’s orders and abducted her, but then rescued her, was trapped in this filth to die made her angry and desperate.
She leaned her forehead against the wood and took some seconds to compose herself. She had to move on, had to see if she couldn’t find somebody whom she might be able to cajole, to bribe, to release Florice.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m so sorry this is happening to you, but I’ll be back. Please hold on, Florice.”
She took one final look at his prone figure, hoping that she could keep her promise, and moved on. Only for the driving need to find the wolf, she could hardly bear to look into the other cells for fear of what she might find. Her mind was reeling with the need to get Florice out—she couldn’t afford to be sidetracked by anybody else’s plight. One thing at a time.
She still hadn’t encountered any jailer or guards, so there must be more to this building then just the cells on the ground level. When she got to the end of the hallway, she faced a staircase leading to the cellar and upper floors.
Adi debated with herself whether to go up or down, when she heard the distant whine of the wolf. She didn’t hesitate to follow the sound upwards until she came to another cell, its door left open.
As Adi looked into the room, her heart sank. The only concession to the wolf’s comfort was a drain that channeled liquids away from the center of the floor. Adi’s nose wrinkled as she stepped closer into the cell. She pinched her nose shut and breathed shallowly through her mouth.
The animal lay prone on his side and barely managed to lift his head as Adi moved closer. There were piles of excrement and rotten food strewn on the stones, and Adi couldn’t find a clean spot on which to kneel. She had no choice but to squat near the wolf’s head, taking care not to get too close just in case the animal decided to lash out.
Adi stretched out her hand, and without hesitation, a cold tongue touched her fingers. She took that as encouragement to proceed and gently patted his head between his ears. It dropped back down to the floor, and the small moan the animal emitted sounded nearly human. Adi smiled with tears in her eyes. Then she got up again and looked around to see if there was anything she could do to make the animal more comfortable.
A bowl of fresh water had been left cruelly just out of reach of the captured wolf, and there was no sign of any food anywhere in the room. Adi grimaced before bending down and using her fingertips to pick up the filthy wooden bowl, careful not to spill a drop.
She walked back and set the container slowly in front of the wolf’s nose. Again the predator twitched, but now seemed to be too weak to even lift his head. Undecided, Adi looked between the water and the animal’s huge jaw before she made up her mind.
She squatted back down, wet her fingers with some of the liquid, and brushed it over the wolf’s lips. She had to do this three times before his tongue snaked out and gathered up the valuable water. Encouraged, she did it again and again until the animal became more interested.
It seemed to take a long time but was probably only a few minutes before Adi was able to fill her hollowed hands with liquid and bring it to the wolf’s mouth. Visibly recovering, the animal licked the water from her hands.
Adi giggled when the tip of his tongue tickled her palms. At the sound, the animal’s ears pricked up, and for the first time, he showed some interest in her. His eyes, which had remained closed throughout the entire encounter, opened slowly. Adi was stunned at the pain and intelligence reflected in his blue-sapphire irises.
Adi ran her fingertips carefully over the wolf’s emaciated body. It was encrusted with filth, and she had to actively fight to overcome her resistance to touch all the nastiness that matted the fur to his body. It was so dirty that not even a good soak would get all the filth out of his hair.
He probably needs a shave. That thought made her remember a meme of a cat glaring at its owner after a bath, the head all fluffy and big, and the body skinny, with wet hair plastered to it. She chuckled, but soon her mirth got stuck in her throat.
Much of the dirt was in fact dried blood. There weren’t any huge wounds, but the wolf was covered in small scratches, larger gashes, and abrasions. She shouldn’t have been surprised by this discovery after seeing him being whipped earlier.
His eyes had closed again under the ministrations of her soft hands. On the second pass back up his body, her hands encountered a strip of leather cutting deeply into the skin around his neck. It must have made breathing difficult and would explain why the animal was so passive.
Adi let her fingers walk around the circumference of the binding, hoping to encounter a knot she could untie. There was nothing but an uninterrupted strap. She had no idea how the faeries had done this. Adi quickly dismissed it as yet another weird thing she didn’t quite understand about this place. Obviously the queen used magic, and it only stood to reason that her minions would too.
Adi got up again and walked the perimeter of the small room, hoping to find something, anything, that would allow her to cut through the enchanted leather band, but came up empty.
She didn’t understand why she was quite so worried about the state of this parti
cular animal. There was something about his gaze, the way he reminded her of her friend that made it feel cruel to just walk away. So she sat and pulled his head onto her lap, not minding any longer the filth she sat in.
“I’m so sorry, my friend. I wish I could do something to help you.”
Her hands continued their unconscious journey through the fur, smoothing down the hairs on the top of his nose with one index finger, brushing his ears, and softly caressing the underside of his jaw. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore.
He seemed to have gone back to sleep, and for a split second, Adi was terrified that he had passed away while she had been speaking to him. She put the palm of her hand on his rib cage and sighed with relief when she felt his chest move up and down.
Gently she pushed his head off her lap and supported it all the way down onto the hard floor, cushioned by some soft scraps of clean straw she had found just within her reach. Then she got up and walked towards the exit. Before she left the cell, she turned around.
“I will get you out of here, I promise.”
She had no idea how she would do that, but she was determined to free the helpless animal. As she continued on her way, the weight of the responsibility she’d put upon herself nearly crushed her. She had now promised to help two creatures, Florice and the nameless wolf. She needed to speak to the queen again and try to learn what her plans were. And she was still no closer to finding Honi.
Adi picked up her pace and retraced her steps towards the throne room across the courtyard. She rushed past some courtiers that hadn’t been there earlier. Their stares followed her, taking in her disheveled appearance, the brown stains on her butt, on her knees, and the filth on her fingers. She didn’t really care. All she was worried about was getting help before it was too late.
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