Chapter 2 #4
The other orc, Kobeth’s second, is talking. He’s loud. Deep in his cups. I can’t help but listen as I watch Bryn struggle. The human male pushes her against the wall and spreads her legs, and Warrior stands and moves closer to watch.
That cunt.
‘Aye, it’s true that many humans pass through.
They give us first pick, but we don’t usually want ’em.
They don’t fight well and can’t put on such a show as this.
Weak. Soft and fragile from the Light, they are.
Most don’t know the work of a slave. The females are sometimes a bit entertaining, though, when they have a little Light Realm spirit, but it leaves them quickly when they understand there is no hope for them.
The slaves in the pits need to be strong. The Light Realm ones are not for us.’
Bere is nodding sagely as he watches Bryn and the human male. ‘A fae, is she? Does she come here herself?’
I abruptly realize that I’m finally hearing something specific about what I came here for.
Only it’s too fucking late to do anything about it.
My fists clench as I push all thoughts of the mission away, all the questionable actions I’ve performed in its name.
It’s too late for all of that. It’s over.
And it’s my own fault. I should never have brought Bryn here, should never have used her the way I have.
I focus on her but, chained where I am, I can’t completely block out their chatter.
In the room beyond, I’m sure the fight is finished.
The human male has Bryn against the wall, immobile and awaiting her fate.
My stomach sinks, but then I see her face snap forward and she bites his nose.
The fight isn’t finished for her. She still has too much to lose.
His squeal is shrill like a pig and he pulls them both from the wall, dancing around and trying to get her off him. He jerks at her ineffectually.
The orcs in the room guffaw loudly.
Maldred finally pulls Bryn’s teeth from him, and I see her spit out a chunk of his nose.
There’s blood everywhere. He screams in her face and grabs her hair, pulls her head back and exposes her throat.
He bites her where her neck meets her shoulder in retaliation and she screams loudly.
She kicks out and catches him in the same knee again.
He drops her just as another piece of the cave ceiling falls on him. A much bigger piece this time.
He lurches to the side and drops to the floor, blood pooling around his head.
It’s sudden and oddly anticlimactic. But the spectators must feel the same because all of them are silent now.
Like me, they’re not sure what they’re seeing.
And I’m half sure that I’m simply hallucinating what I wish would happen.
Bryn skitters back to the wall, sinking slowly down, one hand clutching at the bloody bite on her shoulder as she curls into a ball.
Kobeth examines the ceiling again, searching for an explanation.
‘Fuck!’ he exclaims belatedly. ‘He was my best fighter.’
But Bere is frowning, looking up at the roof of the room, to the dead human male, and then at Bryn.
My sluggish mind is trying to catch up, reach a realization, but I can’t quite get to it.
‘Gods,’ Bere says before turning to the guard. ‘You, bring the human to me.’
Kobeth scowls at Bere. ‘You’ll not punish her for winning, nor reward her neither. Coin’s changed hands, my fae friend. She’s mine now. I’ll be making sure she gets what’s coming to her later.’
Bere shakes his head, opening his mouth to say something, but then quickly shuts it again, looking extremely annoyed about something.
My view of him is blocked as I find Warrior in front of me, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Quite the exciting fight, eh, Locke? Didn’t see that coming, did you?’
‘No,’ I grind out, knowing that he’ll have an answer from me one way or another.
He’s spent hours making sure I know exactly what he’s capable of, and what his rules are. Questions without answers mean deep cuts in painful spots.
He takes a step closer, looking commiserative. ‘How about this?’
He turns his head just as Bere, the two orcs, and the guard all fall to the ground.
His mouth opens in mock surprise and then he laughs.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, eyeing them, wondering how he’s timed it so perfectly.
‘What I’ve been waiting to do ever since my slave ended up here because of you, you cunt.
It was bad luck that Bere and Kobeth had her down in the pits where I couldn’t get to her, too,’ he continues as he turns and goes straight to the narrow door.
‘It’s taken this long to ensure I’d get out with her.
At least we’re very close to the Gate room here.
It shouldn’t be too hard to convince the guards to let me and my slave leave for Merediea.
I’ve been building rapports with them since we got here. ’
He glances back. ‘Good luck explaining to the rich pricks who run this place why Kobeth and the others are here on the floor like this.’ He laughs a little. ‘Though if they hadn’t imbibed so much of the wine so quickly, they would but sleep instead of being quite so dead.’
He opens the door. ‘Still, fewer loose ends this way.’
‘Come, slave,’ he calls in a singsong voice.
I watch as Bryn blinks slowly and gets to her feet, leaving the room where the human male lies dead and returning to this one. She looks around, eyeing the bodies of the orcs and Bere with a detached expression.
‘Do you know me, Bryn?’ Warrior asks her.
She glances up at him. ‘I think so, my lord.’
I look over at her sharply. Does she remember? I want her to. I need her to realize who he is, what he’s capable of, what he did to her in Dead City, how he’s already tried to use her, hurt her. She can’t let him take her with him.
‘How do you know me?’ he asks with a shit-eating grin, side-eyeing me.
‘You spoke to me when I first came here,’ she says quietly. ‘You asked me if I knew you then as well, my lord.’
‘And had you seen me before the first time I asked?’
‘I don’t think so, my lord.’
‘I’m your master now.’ Warrior’s dark smile widens.
‘We’re leaving, Kismet,’ he tells her. ‘You and I are going to put right so many wrongs. All who cross me will feel Fate’s wrath as we make our way to your new home!’
I lurch a little under the chains, making them clang.
Kismet?
‘Put this on.’
Warrior pulls a dirty, roughly spun slave dress that may once have been blue from his pack and she throws it over her head without question.
I stare at Warrior and then at Bryn.
Bryn is Fate Touched.
Kismet.
Gods. Of course! The injuries that seemed to happen when she was around. The bovine that rampaged through the barn in the Seventh Circle for no reason at all…other than that Bere had hit Bryn, I recall. How could I have missed such a thing?
But then, I missed many things. Perhaps nothing so large as the human slave we were traveling with being Fate Touched, though.
Her dull eyes stray to me and Warrior smirks when he sees where she’s looking. ‘Do you remember him, Kismet?’
‘He brought me here, my lord,’ she answers tonelessly.
Her brow furrows a little as if she’s trying very hard to do something.
Does she remember?
If she does, at least she’ll understand the danger that Warrior poses to her. Maybe she can escape even if I do see the hatred she’ll feel for me in her eyes before she leaves me here to die.
I deserve it at any rate.
‘Come,’ Warrior says, taking her arm in a tight grip. ‘Let’s begin putting this gift of yours to good use. One of those cocks guarding the Ring was rude to me earlier. I want him to pay before we enter the Breach.’
He pulls Bryn along easily but before he’s taken her two steps, she seems to fall into the side of his body as if she’s tripped.
But Warrior doubles over with a groan and I see that one of his own jeweled knives is buried in his side to the hilt. She didn’t fall into him at all, she was stealing his knife to stab him.
She watches like a bystander, her face blank, as he collapses into one of the nearby chairs and his eyes fall shut.
‘Go,’ I wheeze at her. ‘He won’t be dead for long. Flee while you can. However you can.’
But she walks over to me.
‘You brought me here,’ she says. It’s not an accusation, just the truth as she remembers it.
‘I did.’
She frowns at me, looking puzzled. ‘Why are you chained? You’re a master.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘I deserve it, Bryn. Trust me.’
Her eyes close tightly. ‘You… There’s something you were going to do. We had a…a deal.’
‘Yes.’
‘You were going to take me somewhere. But you didn’t.’
‘The Light Realm.’
Her quick intake of breath flays me. But then she smiles, hope brightening her dull eyes.
‘The Light Realm,’ she whispers, her awe palpable. ‘Are we close?’
‘We’re close. Two Gate journeys. One to Merediea and then another to the Light.’
She turns away without a word and I think she’s leaving me, but instead she casually turns over one of the orcs and comes back a moment later with a key.
‘You brought me here. You’re my way out. I must survive. Take me there and I’ll free you.’
I nod even as my conjure on her motivations becomes apparent by the way she speaks. There’s only one thing on her mind. Survival. She’ll do whatever she must to ensure it. I long to take the magick off her, and I will as soon as I’m able, but her drive to live may well save us both.
‘I’ll take you to the Light Realm. I vow it,’ I say, using the binding words I didn’t say the first time.
The time she doesn’t truly remember.
She reaches up and puts the great key into the padlock, turning it slowly. The iron chains fall away and, with them no longer holding me up, I sink to the floor, breathing heavily.
My magick begins to return immediately. It’s weak, but it’s hopefully enough to get us out of here without anyone noticing us.
I force myself to my feet and fight the vertigo that assails me. I realize how ravaged my body is from the weeks I’ve been locked up here.