Worldbinder

A MAN OUT OF FAVOR

Daylan Hammer struggled against his captors as they bore him to the dungeons. He thrashed and kicked, but even with four endowments of brawn, he couldn’t match the combined strength of the warrior clan. These men had been bred to battle over too many generations and were too large. In fighting them, he only risked breaking his bones.

So he battled them, but at a measured pace. He didn’t want them to guess his true strength.

They dragged him to the dungeons.

There were fine cells at the top, places where nobles had been held captive in ages past. Now, only a few scraggly paupers filled the cells. Justice in Caer Luciare didn’t lend itself to long prison stays. A few lashes with a whip for disturbing the peace, a lopped-off hand for stealing, a day in the stocks for questioning a lord’s character-those were the kinds of punishment that were dealt out. The prison was used mainly to hold criminals for a few hours before sentencing.

So Daylan hoped for a nobleman’s cell. But they bore him below, past the torture chamber where tongs and forges and bloodied knives gave mute testimony to past retributions.

The Princess Kan-hazur was in a cell near the door. He saw her sitting, dressed in gray rags, her dark hair a ragged mat. She was larger than most of the warriors, topping eight feet, and though she was but eighteen, her long, powerful arms looked as if they could snap a man in half.

She growled as the warriors passed, and lunged, grabbing one by the collar and ramming his head into the bars.

Daylan kicked hard then, using the diversion to nearly break free.

But years of confinement had left the princess weak, and within a moment the warrior had her by the hair, twisting her head around until he could get her in a stranglehold.

The warriors carried Daylan past her cell, to a small grate, and Daylan fought fiercely at that point, managing to kick one warrior in the face and loosen a few teeth, just before they shoved him into a foul hole.

He slid down a rough incline perhaps forty feet, before he landed in a pool of feces and urine that was chest-deep.

There was little light in this place. He peered up above, perhaps a hundred feet. Light shone through a few privies. He was below the soldiers’ barracks.

The walls were slick with excrement, the slope far too steep for a man to climb.

The dark waters were hot and smelled of sulfur. Obviously, they had trickled in through some crack in the rock from the hot springs that were used to warm the city in the winter. The water was too hot for comfort.

There was a jangle of keys up above as his captors locked the iron grate. Someone laughed and shouted down at him, “Dinner!”

A loaf of bread came bouncing down the slimy slope, to land with a wet plop. Daylan picked it up. It had been old and crusty.

For a long moment he stood, assessing the situation.

The smell was atrocious, but he knew that you could get used to any smell. He had been in some dire places in his life, but nowhere as foul as this.

There was nowhere to sit, nowhere to rest. The cesspool left him only a small space to stand in, perhaps only ten feet across. And he imagined that when he got tired enough, he could try to float.

But the excrement in the cesspool had the consistency of quicksand. A layer of water and urine covered the top, perhaps to a depth of four inches, and all beneath that was a sordid stew.

To try to rest would be to drown.

Of course, that was what he was here for. That was his torment. He could stand in the muck while soldiers rained their urine down on him, or dropped a foul hail upon him, waiting for days without food or drink, until the High King decided that it was time to fish him out, bring him to his trial, and, hopefully, condemn him to a speedy death.

Or he could choose to rest, and thus to drown.

He tried wading a bit, found that objects that were sharp and hard rolled and shifted beneath his feet-the bones of those who had chosen to drown.

After a few minutes, the sound of the captor’s harsh laughter died away, and he was left to himself.

I am supposed to deliver the princess to the rendezvous point tomorrow, he realized.

That will take some doing, he thought, emitting a bark of painful laughter.

So much had changed in just a few hours. He wondered if the wyrmlings could keep to the bargain now, even if he did manage to deliver her.

He thrashed about, trying to find a comfortable place to stand.

Perhaps if I can climb up to the grate, he thought, I could squeeze through the bars.

But the climb looked impossible. Without a rope it was hopeless.

Even endowments of brawn and grace would not let him negotiate that slick slope.

I’ll have to dig my fingernails into the rock, he thought, to get any purchase. Maybe then, I could climb out.

But even to try would attract attention. Once news of a captive broke out in the barracks, many a curious eye would be aimed down the privy holes.

That is, until tomorrow, Daylan realized.

The troops were to leave at dawn.

As if to confirm his worries, someone called out from above, “Look, there’s a rat in the pisser.”

“Well then, you know what to do,” a gruff voice laughed.

A steady yellow rain began to fall.

“You men sat at my table,” Daylan shouted up. “Which of my songs or jokes offended you so?”

There was no answer from above.

With no other recourse, Daylan Hammer merely folded his arms, closed his eyes, and tried to remember fairer days.