Flight of the Fallen

9 The Brute Prison

Linsha came awake abruptly. From only a few feet away a bony face stared down its aristocratic nose at her. Shadows cast from the torchlight outside their prison lay in sharp relief along the edges of its features. The steely gray eyes stared at a point somewhere beyond her left cheek as if their owner could not bear to look her in the eye.

“Your friend is back,” Sir Remmik said in a curt tone. “You may want to take a look at him.”

Having done what he felt was necessary, Remmik withdrew, leaving her lying in confusion.

Her mind, still drugged with sleep, did not grasp his meaning right away. Her friend? Which friend? She opened her mouth and tasted the acrid aftertaste of the general’s magic. Gods, how did he do that? Even worse she felt a stinging sensation on her neck where the gold chain had cut into her skin. Her hand flew unbidden to her throat. She touched the empty space where the scales had hung and felt the bloody weal on the back of her neck. The scales were gone.

She felt as though the Tarmak had ripped away the only connection she had left with both dragons. What was left felt like a gaping raw hole in her heart. She would have curled back into a ball and tried to escape back into sleep again, except Sir Remmik’s words resurfaced in her groggy memory. Her friend was back. What friend? Then another bit of memory returned, and she sat up and looked around.

Lanther lay close to the barred doors where the guards had dumped him, sprawled on his back and still as death. No one else moved to help him because most were sleeping the sleep of the mentally and physically exhausted, and apparently Sir Remmik did not want to be bothered any further.

Careful of her aching head, Linsha rolled to her hands and knees and crawled to the Legionnaire’s side. He didn’t move when she checked his pulse, but she felt his heartbeat slow and steady under his jaw. The man had a constitution of steel. She fetched water from a bucket the Tarmaks had left and bathed his face until he regained consciousness enough to drink some water.

For the next hour or so, she gave him water a little at a time and fed him crumbs of the dry bread their captors had given them as supper. Eventually he fell asleep with his head in her lap. She didn’t mind. The night was quite chilly, and her body needed what little warmth he could share.

She sat with her back against the old wall and listened to him breathe. At least he was still alive and here with her, not lying in the blood-drenched caves or out in the garden with arrows in his back. That was something.

For a while she watched him sleep. When sleep did not return to her, she watched the Tarmak guards pass by the doors of the prison on their rounds. She timed them as they walked by the doors, and she paid close attention when they changed the guards sometime around midnight. But soon that palled, too, and it wasn’t long after the guards resumed their stations that her mind began to wander. Although she wanted to shy away from it, she finally let her thoughts pick through the tales the Knights had told her of the massacre in Scorpion Wadi. Sir Remmik had said nothing of the catastrophe, hut several of the younger ones, Sir Johand and Sir Pieter, had talked with the horror still fresh on their faces.

She asked about Sir Hugh, General Dockett, Falaius and others, but the only death they knew for certain was the general’s, for they had seen his head on the stake staring down on them as they marched past.

The entire camp.

Even now Linsha could hardly comprehend it. The Tarmaks had barely waited for the dust of Crucible’s departure to settle before they attacked. They had probably had the attack planned and the warriors ready to go. They’d only waited for the dragon to leave. Someone must have told them, Linsha decided. Unless the Tarmaks had a spy in the camp, they would not have known so quickly that Crucible had left the Plains. Certainly they could have seen him flying the evening he departed, but without better information, they would not realize he had returned to Sanction.

The idea of a spy in their midst burned in Linsha’s mind. She had suspected it before, during the battle for the city, and the Tarmak general had admitted as much to her in his tent the night before the fight with Thunder. She had told Falaius and General Dockett about her suspicions, but they had been unable to ferret out any possible suspects. She wondered if the spy had lain low while Crucible was in the south and immediately reported to the Tarmaks the moment the dragon disappeared. Or perhaps this informer was very clever. Perhaps he or she had been able to pass on information about the militia, the Wadi, the leaders, the gods knew what else, and still avoid detection. That would help explain the number of watching posts that had been wiped out and the ease with which the Tarmaks were able to find the sentries around the Wadi and slip in undetected. Simply put, the defenders had been betrayed.

A sound came from the prison doors—a sound so small and insignificant only a person awake and listening could have heard it, a noise that would hardly excite attention in a ruin overrun with lizards and rats. Linsha’s breath stilled. Her eyes sought the source of the sound.

Near the floor where the door met the wall, she spotted a small, round form slip furtively through the bars and come sidling into the dark room. It turned its head as it slowly studied the recumbent forms on the floor, and as the creature looked toward her, Linsha saw round creamy eye circles catch the light from the torch just outside.

Linsha and Varia recognized each other at the same moment. The owl’s “ear” feathers popped up, and she scurried over on her stubby legs to where Linsha extended her arm in greeting. Varia joyfully climbed up to Linsha’s shoulder. Murmuring softly, the two friends shared a quiet and delighted reunion.

“You are hurt,” Varia whispered. “There are clouds of blue and purple in your aura.”

Like some human mystics, Varia had the ability to translate the invisible aura radiated by most living beings. Linsha could also read auras, but she had to focus her mystic power of the heart in order to do so, and that magic had almost failed her.

She grimaced and leaned her head back against the wall. “The Tarmak general took my scales,” she said softly, voicing her greatest personal hurt.

The owl bobbed her head. “He used sorcery, too. I can sense it.”

Linsha nodded. Her mind was so tired that her thoughts slowly surfaced like random bubbles in a muddy swamp. “I don’t know where he gets his power. It is strong and seems unaffected by the problems our sorcerers are having. I didn’t think the Tarmaks had magic-wielders.”

The owl’s round eyes narrowed to slits and her beak clacked in anger. She peered over the woman’s shoulder to the sleeping Legionnaire. “What did they do to Lanther?”

“Hung him in a cage out in the sun.”

Varia hissed. “We need Crucible.”

“No!” Linsha didn’t intend to be so loud, but the word came out sharp and emphatic. She glanced guiltily down at Lanther, but he seemed to be still sleeping in spite of her outburst. “No,” she repeated in a whisper. “He should stay with Lord Bight.”

“He would come to you.”

“Why should he? He came here for Iyesta and stayed because his wing was injured.”

Linsha heard the petulant tone in her voice, but she was too weary, too sore, and too downhearted to summon the strength to change it.

The owl swiveled her head around and regarded the woman with widened eyes. “You have suffered much. You are not interpreting your feelings correctly.”

“Probably not,” Linsha said with a sigh. She was really too tired to argue. “I fear for him. I don’t want his blood on my hands… or yours.”

Varia said nothing. She understood much and saw many things Linsha did not. Humans were sometimes an enigma to her, hut this time she thought she knew why Linsha had said no. Well, she would see what Crucible had to say. The big bronze had the right to make his own decisions.

The bird crept a little closer to Linsha’s head and pressed her warm feathers against the lady knight’s cheek. Ever so quietly she began to hum a slow, wordless tune as soft as down, as soothing as a lullaby.

Linsha propped her eyes open. “You can’t sing me to sleep like an obstinate owlet,” she whispered.

Varia continued to hum her song, her body gently vibrating against Linsha’s face. In spite of herself, Linsha’s eyes drooped. Her strained features relaxed. Three breaths later she was asleep, her head lolled back against the wall, her lips slighted parted.

Satisfied, Varia eased away and hopped to the floor. Moments later her small form scurried out into the shadows of the ruin. As soon as she was out of sight of the Tarmak guards, she thrust off with wing and taloned feet and beat upwards into the night sky. Silent and determined, the owl turned north and went to find a bronze dragon.

The sun rose in a tawny dawn and banished the night’s chill. A haze hung over the ocean, but the plains came to light sharp, clear, golden in the morning light. Even before the sun lifted clear of the sea, the people of the Missing City stirred and prepared for another day of work. No matter who ruled the city, there was still the business of survival to attend to. The crops that looked so promising in midsummer had ripened and needed to be harvested to feed the hungry Tarmak army. Livestock scattered across the grasslands had to be rounded up and brought in before winter. Hay had to be cut, grapes gathered and crushed for wine, sheep and goats sheared one last time. In the city market a limited trade of sorts still existed. While there were no foreign merchants, the local craftspeople, farmers, merchants, and fishermen still had wares to trade or sell. The Tarmaks had stripped the city of its militia and the government and had transported many of its young, strong inhabitants to the gods knew where, but they had left the remaining population alive and in place to maintain the city.

To perform the hard labor required for the maintenance and construction needed in their new domain, the Tarmaks also kept a large group of slaves drawn from the city population, the defeated defenders, and any person they happened to capture on their frequent patrols of the surrounding plains. These slaves were kept in pens scattered around the city, and they worked hard to repair the damage of battle and to prepare the city for its new rulers.

One such group was imprisoned at the dragon’s palace, in the old slave pens once used by Thunder. As the sun rose and the day advanced, Linsha and the other prisoners sat in their makeshift prison and listened to the distant sounds of many slave voices shouting and groaning, of rocks crashing into other rocks, of odd grinding noises, and the ring of tools on stone. They wondered what was happening and if their turn would come to join the ranks of the slaves. Although slavery seemed a dreadful prospect to these Knights and Legionnaires, pondering the possibility of becoming a slave seemed preferable to dwelling on the fear that their small group was being held for something worse.

At midmorning they received an answer of sorts.

The Tarmak general arrived at the palace with his personal guard, and once again the prisoners were ordered outside and lined up in the courtyard. This time the general stood aside and watched as his men separated the prisoners into two groups.

“Those,” he ordered pointing to one group of Knights and Legionnaires. “Put them to work on the palace.” He turned his masked face to Linsha’s group. “Put her in the cage. Bring him to my tent.”

Hard hands gripped Linsha’s arms and hustled her to the oblong metal cage. She whipped her head around in time to see the Tarmaks force Lanther after the Tarmak general, then she was slammed into the cage and the door closed. The cage was hoisted on its frame, and all too quickly, Linsha found herself alone, left to hang in the morning sun. The workers were marched away while the remaining men, including Sir Remmik, were returned to the prison. A tense quiet descended on the open yard.

The first few hours were not too unbearable. The morning breeze played among the palace ruins until nearly noon before it skipped away and left the land to the mercies of the hot sun. Linsha tried to keep her limbs limber by shifting her weight from foot to foot, by tensing and relaxing her muscles, and by flexing the few joints she could bend. She tried to distract her mind by studying the Tarmaks she could see. She studied the guards, she observed their gestures and body movements and listened to the snatches of conversation she could hear. She watched the procession of prisoners, one by one from the storehouse to some place she could not see.

Sir Remmik was the first to go, and he left between his guards, his back stiff and his expression severe. He came back staggering between his guards, his face gray and deeply lined. The other men left looking apprehensive and defiant and returned barely able to walk. Several had to be carried. Linsha worried for them and feared for Lanther who had not yet come back. She had a fairly good idea what was happening to them.

With plenty of time to think, she wondered, too, about her other friends—Hugh, Mariana, Falaius, and others in the camp. Where were they? Had any of them survived? Where was Leonidas? And where had Varia gone?

Linsha scanned the trees and ruins around the courtyard and saw no sign of the owl, but if Varia did not want to be seen, even a sharp-eyed elf would have trouble spotting her. Was the owl still here, or had she left on some errand?

As the morning passed and Linsha’s mind slogged over a long trail of thoughts, the breeze died and the sun’s heat collected in the old stone. Linsha’s body, cramped in the iron cage, grew sore and stiff in some places and numb in others. She ached to move. Her clothes itched abominably, yet she could reach nothing to scratch. Her stomach raged at her, her head hurt, and her mouth felt as dry as parched stone.

An hour or so past noon, the Tarmak general in his golden mask returned to the ruined court, escorted by his guards. He walked to Linsha’s cage, crossed his arms, and stared up at her like a statue of a god.

“Where is the owl?” he demanded, his voice as hard as granite.

Linsha glared back. “She’s dead.” She forced the words past her parched throat.

He snapped his fingers and at his command, a wine flask was brought with two stemmed cups. A white wine, shining and fruity, was poured into the two cups. Linsha’s entire body longed for a drink of that pale, cool liquid.

The Tartnak held one cup up toward her and raised the other to his mask. He tossed the contents into his mouth without spilling more than a drop or two. “Where is the rendezvous point for the surviving militia?”

“A little pub on the south side of Palanthas.”

He nodded as if he expected such an answer and spilled the contents of the second cup on the ground. “Later,” he said. “We will talk.”

He left Linsha alone again to stare at the puddle of the wine as it slowly sank down into the cracks between the stones and disappeared. She wanted to cry, she wanted to shriek, but she had no strength left nor moisture in her eyes to form tears. Instead, she forced her eyes closed and turned her mind away from external distractions and focused on the reserves of strength she had left in her heart. She put aside the discomforts of her hunger and her headache, her aching limbs and her thirsty mouth, and she looked deep inside to the inner tranquility she kept hidden for times of great need. Gradually she slowed her heartbeat and soothed the pain in her head. Her muscles relaxed. The world receded into a silence that bore nothing but peace. Sooner than she would have liked, she felt the ephemeral tickle on her face and neck and sensed the power of her heart drain from her like the wine from the cup. It was a feeling she hated and could do nothing to stop. But the mystic power Goldmoon had taught her to use had eased her long enough to serve its purpose. She fell into a deep sleep and left the pain and fear of her confinement behind.